Last Hurrah [Chapter 8]

[Every]

Invite Only: Superstite

[aid_admin][/aid_admin]

The smell of decaying fish still lingered in the air as she heard the subtle click that came with a lock falling away. As she checked over her shoulder, she set her kit aside before opening the door. Above her, there was a beep to acknowledge her entering, but silence remained in the surrounding areas. For the past few weeks, there had been an increase of activity in the wharf and the docks, things that Zachary had been watching under Every’s instruction.

“Alright, I’m in the building. You find anything yet, Cals?” Her hand lifted to the Bluetooth piece in her ear. Static had her wincing before she stepped further into the room, the sound silencing a moment after.

“Remember, these guys mean business. Don’t fool around, kill them.”

As she spoke, Every could feel the weight of her favorite blade resting against her hip. Familiarity had been the key for that evening, the unfamiliar buildings and plans making her towards the unsettled end of her personality. “Now, if I were the Helheim trying to smuggle in things, where would I put my documents…” As she pushed the door shut behind her, she lightly tapped the wall with her fingertips and continued further inside.

[Caligrace]

[aid_admin][/aid_admin]

The voice, garbled and distorted, echoed through the bluetooth as her fingers brushed along the wall. The brick was gritty and damp beneath her touch, and she frowned. I told her I could handle the telepathy, she thought, amber gaze taking note of each shadow as she steadied herself. It had been an argument, and one that she had lost in the end, and she couldn’t stop the twitch of her lips into a half-smile as she waited for the woman to fight with the very thing she had argued for. When she heard the familiar hiss of static, she knew she only had a second or so more before the shadow fixed the device.

“You got it sorted there, girl?”

Her voice was no more than a whisper, and she dropped into a crouch, her small frame pressed against the building behind her as she took a steadying - and unneeded - breath. This was the tenth location, and already, she could feel the exhaustion seeping into her. Dead end after dead end (and, of course, the handful that been the wrong location due to her lack of direction), and she was beginning to think they were on a wild goose chase without an end in sight. Lifting a pale hand, she brushed back her hair and tucked a few loose curls of red behind her ear as she sighed. “I moved on to another location. It seems the most promising, but I said that about the last five, too.”

Running her tongue along her teeth, she leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes, everything around her falling into silence as she connected to the thousand of webs in her mind. Following the thread that she needed, she entered the police database once more, her eyes dancing frantically behind her lids. A thousand images filtered through her mind, a thousand more names, and she mentally flipped through each one until she finally brought the cargo truck’s license plate. A name. She needed a name.

“I’m going to go further in. Don’t worry about me, you know I’m g---” The sound of an engine drawing closer silenced her, and she moved to her feet, one hand lifting to shield her eyes from the glare of the headlights as the armored truck pulled up to the gate. Without thinking twice, she inched closer, her fingers slipping beneath the leather of her jacket to rest on her gun.

“I might have something…”

[Luca]

[aid_admin][/aid_admin]

“They’ve stopped just around the corner. I don’t think that the place is going to be as empty as we would have hoped.” Turning to look back over the shoulder of his seat, Luca looked at the huddle of vampires crammed into the big SUV alongside the one paladin among them. He still stuck out like a sore thumb. The tall German man lifted a hand to pull the key from the ignition, killing the engine and the lights without turning to look at what he was doing. “So, Corporal, I’m going to need you and your man there to keep those guns of yours ready. We might need them after all.”

He let his gaze move from the two Helheim vampires in the back to where Sullivan sat against the door. He nodded to him, then tipped his head to where Blaike sat in the passenger’s seat next to himself. “The three of us are going to go ahead. They’re going to be going through the gate any second, and we’re going to push through before it closes. It’s likely that we’re going to start a firefight once we’re inside, so once things go south, listen to our friends here, and get out of their way. We don’t need to be explaining to anybody why we got ourselves shot by standing in the path of our covering fire.”

He turned back to look ahead, watching the dot on the gps tracker that he had paid a kid to slip behind the license plate of the truck while it sat at a traffic stop. It had been an innocent enough thing to watch, and it had let them follow this particular truck to and from the place they were going in. Though as they had come to this last corner, the truck had passed, as expected, along with a quick succession of two more after it. Whatever they were moving tonight, they were moving a lot of it at one time. The truck’s dot edged forward on the screen and he waited a few heartbeats before starting the engine again, filling the narrow side street they sat in with light. “Hold on to your hats, boys.”

[Blaike]

[aid_admin][/aid_admin]

They’d been sitting in this ******* SUV for...He didn’t even know how ******* long but it felt -Tooo- ******* long. Luca hadn’t even let him sit in back so he could flirt with the Soldiers. I mean who didn’t like a guy in a ******* uniform right? And now they’d stopped. He still wasn’t sure what the **** was going on, and honestly trying to focus on Luca’s voice without commenting on how he constantly sounded like some T.V show cop was starting to get to him. “Ya know sometimes you sound like we are in an episode of CSI Miami. I’m just waiting for you to take off your sunglasses and turn and look at me and tell me how the ******* dude died.”

He laughed at his down joke, then let his blue eyes follow along with the blinking dot on the GPS. He felt his adrenaline kick in, he knew what was about to go down. A ******* fight, some god damn good *** mayhame. He was ready for it too. He looked over his shoulder two the two soldiers and blew some kisses at them before winking. “Dun worry boy’s I’ll cover your asses if you need um coverrred.”

He wasn’t at all surprised when they just leered at him. The broad muscled man just shrugged his large shoulders and sent a wink to Sullie "I Got you too Baby boo.” Even though he was light hearted and joking, he knew what was about to go down wasn’t going to be. However, true to this nature he couldn’t just go into a fight like the Mountie sitting next to him, hell would freeze over before Blaike went into a firefight without popping off some jokes, or flirting with at least one person. He felt the engine start once more, then turned back around, his hands wrapped around the assault rifle that sat between his legs, his attention turned to the Mountie and his blonde brow’s waggled his eyebrows. “You think they want to say hello to my little friend?” A joke again, but he couldn’t hide the way his muscles tensed, the way his jaw clenched a little.

[Sullivan (DELETED 11708)]

[aid_admin][/aid_admin]

Sullivan feels queasy and there’s this sensation of fire ants crawling over his skin as he sits in the back of the SUV. As much as he wants to put this experience down to adrenaline and anxiety, he knows better than that. He always gets this feeling when he’s close to vampires and he couldn’t get much closer than being crammed in a SUV with four of them. He’s grateful for Blaike’s jokes because they really are the best distraction he can get whilst being trapped on all sides by the walking dead. He looks out of the windows once or twice – his main objective being not to look at the faces of the soldiers next to him – but there’s not much to see and he doesn’t want to appear too distracted. When Luca gives them the low-down and the bare bones of a plan, he pins his attention to the man before nodding in agreement. Blaike’s comment to him coaxes a wink and a grin from Sullivan; it also helps to steady his pulse and keep it under control.

Before long, Luca starts up the engine and the rattling growl is a premature elegy that carries them to the gate. As they follow the bleep of the light on the GPS, Sullivan takes a moment to check over his firearm. The PDW is foreign to his hands, but, he’s starting to like the weight of it. The compact automatic is a step up on his typical choice of a pistol and comes with the added benefit of piercing rounds, an integrated reflex sight, and fully ambidextrous controls as well as a 50-round magazine. This means that any enemy in body armour isn’t going to stand much of a chance and Sullivan isn’t going to be restrained by a bulky piece of machinery. He needs to be both light on his feet and out of range to avoid becoming the Swiss cheese in this vampire meat sandwich.

“I really hope you’re talking about your firearm and not your dick, brother,” Sullivan says to Blaike; the humour in his voice makes his own joke sound a little pithy. “Ain’t nobody around that wants to say hello to that.”

[Amalea]

[aid_admin][/aid_admin]

The click clack of the keys of the laptop was a partially soothing sound to the red-head whose fingers danced across them. They were familiar motions even if they were beyond what her usual day-to-day operation of the technology. Thankfully, it was just like riding a bicycle or she would be pulling her hair out about now. The last time she had been this neck deep was back when she’d been chasing leads on a scroll detailing a ritual that made a human’s blood toxic to vampires. That had led to an… interesting… adventure.

Her nose twitched as she re-read the Administrator’s missive. Not for the first time she wondered where this entity got off asking vampires yet again to do their dirty work. If this goose chase led to another ancient vampire, she was going to find a way to track down this mysterious jerk and shoot them. Repeatedly. Preferably at point blank range.

After a moment’s deliberation, Amalea focused her efforts on a Google search in the hunt to find potential sources of information on the Foundation. Having noted all the promising results, she began her methodical approach to research. A quick read of the site produced nothing solid so she turned her attention towards slipping into the site’s file servers where anything really juicy was likely to be found.

[Every]

[aid_admin][/aid_admin]

Her eyebrow twitched in frustration. She needed to find her old phone, but retracing the steps in the battleground wasn’t going to be in her best interest. “Yeah, I’ve got it. I’m about to throw it across the hall.” Her tone was grumpy and she knew it. Her thoughts drifted to the others in their crew, what they were doing - Luca had been leading an escort. It wasn’t the most glamorous thing for Blaike or Sullivan, truthfully Every was more amused knowing the paladin was going to be physically uncomfortable, but the three of them would get the job done.

Lea was hacking leads through businesses. A quick eye spy told her all she needed to know with their locations, but as Caligrace said she’d moved, Every triangulated her. “You did, but you aren’t too far from me, I think. At least close enough to use celerity.” She rolled her wrist to check the time before her knuckles rapped against the wall once more. Nothing. “Alright, I’m going to start placing cameras. They’ll transmit back to the server I set up. We can look through stuff later. Keep me updated.”

Hazel eyes swept over the room, searching for a vantage point as she pulled her bag over her shoulder. She set it on the desk, combing through it for a moment before a rigged camera was found. The device was small, about the size of a silver dollar in her palm, but the explosive on the back would pack a comfortable punch. Making her way to a bookshelf, Every chose an angle that would get the better half of the room.

”I can’t use an emitter without it blocking out all the phones.” She said, once it was sorted. A glance through her doppelgängers eyes told her that the system for the cameras were running properly. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t..”

[Caligrace]

[aid_admin][/aid_admin]

It didn’t take her long to find her way to the back of the truck, her steps sure and quick. For her size, she would have made a wonderful thief - had she actually had the ability to navigate the world on her own. As it stood, she was rather proud of herself that she had managed to make it from her perch against the wall, across the street, and to the back of the truck without getting lost along the way. Shaking her head at her own thoughts, she brushed a few errant locks of crimson from her pale features and crept to the back of the armored vehicle, the exhaust from the tailpipe hot against her jean-clad leg. Holding her breath in a feeble attempt to not breathe in the toxic fumes, she tipped her head back, amber eyes narrowed.

It looks simple enough, she mused to herself, just as Every’s voice filtered - with clarity - back through the earpiece. With a smirk, she gave a quiet click of her tongue, knowing the other would hear. It was a silent command, one asking for silence, though she knew she could have switched to telepathy. The moment her eyes zeroed in on the keypad, though, she knew that she was going to need every ounce of brain power to be able to make it through the system. You don’t have time for this, you know, the voice - quiet as the night’s wind - whispered against her ear, causing her fingers to twitch. Gritting her teeth, the allurist took a second to close her eyes, and then re-focused, her mind connecting easily.

A series of numbers and names filed into her mind, one after the other, and she worked her way through the system with far less ease than she had originally assumed. Of course it wasn’t going to be easy - it was, after all, an armored truck carrying god knows what for god knows who. Laughing at herself, she shook her head when, after a few long moments, the final number keyed into place and the door opened with a soft click. Reaching a gloved hand up, she curled it around the handle and hoisted her small frame into the back, eyes tracking the shadows for anyone that might be hiding within them. Finding it empty of bodies - but filled with wooden crates - she clicked the button on her phone.

“I’m in, and girl, you won’t believe this,” she whispered as she freed her phone from her pocket. Ensuring the flash was off, she began to snap picture after picture of the containers - opened, closed, and the symbols on the side - and sent them to the brunette. Each crate contained high end weapons - guns, explosives, and something that she couldn’t quite name - and she made sure that every single one was documented. With a quiet sigh, she popped open the last crate to spot a large envelope on top, and then tensed, feeling the truck as it began to move beneath her feet.

“****. We might have a prob---”

Her words were silenced as the door to the truck swung open, a shocked shout from one of the soldiers filling the small space. Within seconds, hands were wrapped in her hair, and she felt herself being flung back - but not before she managed to snag the envelope, tucking it beneath her jacket. With a soft sound, the redhead spun, her elbow slamming into the man’s arm to free her of his hold. She knew she didn’t need to speak - she knew that the brunette would know she was in trouble - and so, she focused on the men that poured out of the small buildings, their weapons drawn - and all aimed at her. With a low sound, she hissed in a breath and grabbed onto one of the crates, slender fingers finding the first thing she could…

Grenade.

Flicking her tongue over her teeth, she shrugged and pulled the pin, dropping the grenade back into the box before she leaped from the back. She had expected a small explosion to cause a distraction, but when the earth seemed to tremble as the heat blasted from within, she realized her mistake. The explosion within the single truck knocked her off her feet and sent her stumbling into the group closest to her, and as she collapsed to her knees, she tasted blood on her tongue. Seeming to regain their composure before her, one of the soldiers hooked his arm around her throat and pulled her upright, gun pressed to her temple, though whatever he shouted - she couldn’t hear over the ringing in her ears.

Hissing out a breath, she watched as the world around her came to life in blood, fire and chaos, the man who held her trembling for a second as another explosion echoed through the night - this one from the trucks. She didn’t know what caused it, but something told her she was no longer on her own in the midst of the army base.

[Storyteller]

==========AUTOMATED POST==========

Caligrace attempted to hack a tough target, and was successful!

[Luca]

[aid_admin][/aid_admin]

As soon as the last truck was through the gate, the heavy wall of barred steel and concrete shuddering on its track as it began to close, the final truck in the convoy rolling to a stop behind the others as they began to file into the dock. The engine of the SUV bellowed as he floored the gas, the shutting gate scraping against the rear quarter panel of the big vehicle’s body.

The rear door of the last truck began to open, an arm swinging a firearm first bursting through. The muzzle flash of the automatic weapon burst into life a second before the front end of their car slammed into the back end of the truck. The bulletproof glass remained largely intact, the armored body of both vehicles not giving much, though the doors to the truck were slammed into their frame in a cockeyed alignment, the arm that had held the firearm was missing, a splash of blood across the back of the truck told him all he needed to know that someone inside was having a bad night.

Throwing open the door, Luca dropped himself behind the SUV as an explosion rocked the dock, one of the trucks engulfed in fire as the two others backed away from the building as quickly as they could manage. He pulled his Glock from the holster at his hip, running his other hand over his ear at the ringing from the explosion and looked up over the door he crouched behind to see that the others had gotten out alright. He didn’t see from where, but the sound of gunfire ripped through the air and bullets began slamming into the side of the SUV.

Okay or not, they were in the middle of it now.