Balance and Order [Order of Steel]

[Ephraim Steele]

With an already weary sigh, Ephraim fell into the worn couch and draped himself over the arm, leaning back until his spine stretched over the curve of the seat’s structure. A little growl of approval left him as he felt the muscles of his back stretching to accommodate the unnatural curve of the arm digging into his back before he relaxed and let himself slump into the seat. The fort was still largely lacking in creature comforts, he would have to see to it, now that it was seeing more action, and likely even more in the coming weeks, that that was taken care of. He practically lived here, at this point in his life, and it was high time he stopped trying to live like some kind of spartan monk, bent on some sort of spiritual self-flagellation by keeping his domain as minimalistic and bare of common amenities as possible. He needed to start living like a damn person. He was going to lose his mind if he kept thinking of himself as a soldier at war with a world gone mad.

For the time being, and for the immediate purpose of the little gathering he’d set up, there were a pair of couches and some armchairs strewn about one of the great rooms that had been largely cleared out and left to their devices. He needed to remember to make the place feel more decorated and made a mental note to begin collecting knick-knacks and adornments that would make the space feel more like a home. The war room needed to feel its part, and when the whole space felt like it was as cold and lifeless as that, then everything, even the minor details in their ongoing lives, felt far too serious, too life and death, and the really big things tended to lose their edge. In the center was a coffee table, where he had left several maps of the city, as well as some rough diagrams of some of the more well-known hangouts that they often visited to scout for undead.

What had come in most handy, though, was Tierney’s computer, and the recent emergence of the local authority’s leak on criminal activities and the open contracts on criminals at large that were often far and beyond the capabilities that the police department had at their disposal. That was where the meeting came into play, and the discussion that they had ahead of them and the preparations that they had to make, depending on the action they decided to take with the information that had been all but handed to them. It wasn’t their original mission, to play police and to safeguard the integrity of their city, but when the chaos that events recent and not-so-recent had caused fell into their lap, dissemination of the criminal mindset seemed to ramp up significantly, and if any sort of semblance of life and normalcy was going to ever return to their city, they were likely going to have to have a hand in seeing the criminal element being put down.

Running his fingers through his beard, the muscle-bound man looked over the room around him, sure that the place was ideal for their meeting space, and with a self-satisfied nod, picked one leg up to kick it over the arm of the couch that he had been laid over a moment before, his motions restless as he waited for the others to arrive. He pulled out his phone and, sure that his text to the others had been sent, and opened a game that he started to play in the silence of the room, the only sound the little chimes and chirps that his phone made as he played, followed by the occasional unamused grunt of frustration as he allowed himself to be distracted while he waited for the rest to begin arriving.

[Sawyer]

I hate being summoned. I am not a ******* slave, she thought as she spun her blade in a lazy circle. The ground beneath her was covered in soot, blood and -- well, she did her best not to think of whatever else these ******* creatures might be made of. They were straight out horror stories, with their grotesque features and hastily stitched together forms. Of course, this was only one floor - she could still hear the rumblings beneath her feet as the monsters stumbled around below. She almost didn’t want to think about what else lurked within the darkness, but this was easy training for her, and it allowed her a moment to herself. That was, until, Ephraim decided he needed to speak to them all right that second.

For all of his good looks, she wondered exactly why she was with him. They were oil and water. Fire and ice. He was responsible, religious, and almost tame. She was everything… but that. She was raised in hell compared to the world they were in now. Former addict, thief. The only thing pure about her was how purely uncontrollable she was. Well, unless Ephraim was involved. Or Tierney. Her best friend had a way to make her listen -- for the most part. This was a current example of her not listening and she found herself standing along in a darkened corridor as the sound of claws scraping against stone echoed around her. “Well, ****,” she groaned, using the back of her hand to wipe some grime from her brow. She could keep going, ignore the summoning and get the cliff notes later, or she could be a good little girl and pack it in. Either way, she couldn’t continue to stand there and weigh her option---

THUD.

Stars danced behind her eyes as she slammed into the far wall behind her, arm raising on instinct to blow the sudden onslaught of teeth and claws. Her eyes widened as blows rained down on her, some barely scratching her skin while others carved deep into her stomach and side. With a low hiss of pain, she scrambled to find her blade, fingers sliding through the guts of the beasts friends she had slaughtered minutes before. It took her a moment to realize that her blade was nowhere near her - a second, a beat, a breath, and then her skin ignited in fire as she summoned it to her, the hilt resting comfortably in her palm. The rune burned more than the attacks, and she grit her teeth as she slammed her sword up and into the ancient’s stomach, pulling down before slicing it two. As it collapsed around her, she let her head fall back, uncaring about the mess that matted into her tousled dark hair.

“Okay, screw this. I’m going home. Let’s play the Surprise Everyone by being Obeying for once.”

Lifting herself up, she released a quiet breath and moved to her feet, her eyes closing for a second as she shook her head to try and clear the ringing. When that failed, she sighed, and began the slow trek back to their home, her hand working to keep what she could inside where it belonged.

------
By the time she had reached the lair, she was exhausted, sweaty, and covered in blood. She left crimson and black stains wherever her boots and hands landed, and she knew that if the girls hadn’t made it yet, they’d have a field day with the mess she was leaving behind. She could practically hear them already as she stumbled into their quarters, her eyes finding her fiancé without problem. Cracking a tired grin, she made her way towards him -- and promptly draped her bloodied and wounded self across his lap, already pulling some bandages from her pack for him to start his work. “I got bored, so here I am. Don’t get used to it.”

[Tierney]

“And what, do I ask, would it take for you to slip your number in along with those files?”

The man’s first name had long since escaped her mind. She was pretty sure his last name was Harrison, or was it Hannigan? He was one of Sawyer’s contacts and she found him to be too flirtatious for her liking. Tierney didn’t bother looking up from his computer, her fingers gliding with effort over the keyboard. She repeated the soothing mantra of scripts over in her mind, “Mask for authenticity, silence the tracer, silence the tracer.” Their computers weren’t as secure as hers, as strong. She growled in frustration, the sudden noise from the otherwise quiet woman startling the man that had been leaning over her shoulder as she failed a decryption. Her fingers clicked back up on the keyboards, typing in the words faster than the cop had expected. “You know, like I was telling Saw, we’re really thankful for you-.”

“Stop.”

She transferred the final file for the day. The headphones were removed from her head. “Look, all I’m saying is -.” A sharp look made the officer fall quiet. Tierney stood up from behind the desk, “Not interested in conversation. I’m running late because of you. The dump is encrypted with an RSA. The software installed on the laptop Ephraim passed along will allow you to get into it without erasing it. **** with me software and I’ll break your face. Got it?” From behind his desk, the man’s partner snickered. He was used to her attitude by then. “I hack their info and raise their notoriety. You idiots microchip them or we kill them.” Hannigan’s mouth fell, his lips pressing into a thin line afterwards as he glared at her.

Greer lifted his hands as she turned her gaze on him.

He had known Tierney long enough that she didn’t bother him and vice versa. The paladin worked with her father. “Savage Arms still going strong?” He asked, casually. The question had her rolling her eyes. “We’re open, if that’s what you’re asking. There’s a few fangers,” She resisted the urge to cringe at the word, “On the property working and being observed and studied. If they’re on your radar, leave them alone for now.” Her gaze drifted to the clock on the wall and she hissed out in profanity before removing the tome from her bag. The fae language fell like honey from the demi nymphs’ the little angry red creature appearing only briefly with the spell before she found her location separate to what had been.

Her computer sat idle and humming. Her forest of plants scattered around it and on her desk a comfort to her. Tierney hadn’t ever been a people person and even after she’d become a member of the Order of Steel, it hadn’t changed. If anything, her verbal punches had gotten more tense as she sat around people all day. Although, shem still didn’t understand how she’d become the most charismatic person in the room. As she blew on the Venus fly trap, it began to close long enough that her hair wouldn’t get trapped. Stoirm, settled underneath the desk, crawled out and bumped Tierney’s leg with a nudge of her snout before the girl collected a bag of jerky from her drawer. Afterwards, she whistled and the large white dog followed as she made her way towards the meeting area.

“Huh. I guess hell must've froze over. You make a deal with a vampire and are early.”

Tierney would have to check her cards later, and play the lottery with the way things were going at that point. “Talia still not here?” Motioning with her hand to where she would sit, Stoirm trotted over and dropped down in front of one of the chairs before Tierney followed. She sat on the edge of her seat, the burn of her tattoos still unsettled, angry against the cloth of her shirt. Lifting a hand, she rubbed idly at the area despite the advice given from her mother. It itched.

[Talia]

A flurry of curses flew from the blood thief’s mouth as her phone’s text alert was quickly followed by a flurry of incoming bullets. It had been her dumb luck to forget to silence her phone before embarking on her daily cleansing of the old abandoned sewers. Thankfully, she had better luck ducking around a corner before the bullets could turn her into swiss cheese. Pulling her phone from her pocket, she skimmed the message, eyebrow raising ever so slightly at the summons to an immediate meeting. Not bothering to reply, the phone was slipped back into its place. She had a bit of unfinished business to attend to first. ******* vampires.

Concentrating inward momentarily, the brunette found the knowledge she sought. The pulling sensation was her cue to focus on her target and let loose the feeling. Stepping back around the corner, she was satisfied to see that her attacker had seized up and was barely moving. One eye was kept on the beast as she reached behind her withdrawing her katana from its holder. As she brought it down to rest in front of her, she caught sight of a twitch from her prey as it sought to shake the effects of the power restricting it. Another pulling sensation was let loose renewing the restrictions. Carefully, she stepped into the open area, ensuring that she had plenty of room to wield her weapon.

Another twitch was her signal to charge at the Disciple even as the vampire raised his hands to weave her spell. Talia nearly laughed as she felt the same energy she had used was over her. ”Nice try, asshole,” the blood thief snarled, bringing up her sword as the necromancer lunged at her. The resistance of the sharpened steel moving through flesh briefly brought the semblance of a smile to the human’s face. She could have done without the fountain of blood that gushed to the floor making it slick as the steel slid loose from its hold. Catching movement from the corner of her eye, she ducked down and right as a shadow took a swipe at her, taking care not to slip.

”Man, you’re one stupid idiot,” she muttered as the feeling of the same power washed over her once again. Apparently this Disciple couldn’t tell a Blood Thief from a vampire though she wasn’t about to complain about it; it just made him easier to defeat. Eyes narrowed as a different feeling of power radiated from the vampire as she wondered just what kind of trick he was pulling now. As she swung her sword back to ready, she slipped on the bloody floor though thankfully without falling. Why the vampire chose that moment to close in and somersault over her head to attempt to strike at her from behind, she had no clue. At this point, she was willing to chalk it up to his distinct lack of intelligence as they parried each other’s blows. Growing tired of the song and dance, Talia used her power to cause the vampire to seize up. Lunging at the vampire, she sunk her blade into his cheek as he managed to barely flinch out of her way.

A quick reversal and horizontal slash was all it took to reduce the necromancer to ash. Pulling a couple of vials out of her pocket, she collected a bit of the blood and ash for later study. The more they could learn about these parasites, the more refined their methods for eradicating them could become. Tucking them into her bag, she pulled out her tome as she headed for the exit. Technically, she could have activated it while inside, but she wanted to make the attempt to at least remove some of the blood from her shoes first. How she wasn’t also covered in the sticky liquid, she wasn’t sure though she also wasn’t going to question her luck in that matter.

Whispered words of the mysterious fae language activated her tome carrying her to its set destination. ”I’m coming,” the brunette replied to Tierney’s question as it reached her ears. Rolling her eyes at the memory, she continued, ”Had to finish up with a really stupid fanger who couldn’t tell human from vampire. Setting her bag aside an unoccupied chair, she shrugged out of her jacket. Tossing it over the back, the blood thief settled into her seat. ”What’s the occasion?

[Ephraim Steele]

A more prominent, more weary sigh left the man as the lithe frame of his fiancée fell into his lap with all of the unceremonious grace of a pile of bricks. He didn’t have to utter a word for her to already have the first aid kit out, rifling through it for the things she knew he would need, so often this had become necessary lately, which was exactly a part of why he had done what he could to herd the cats into the same room at the same time.

Silently, he set about his work, pulling away the tattered rags she tried to pass as clothes after a day in the field, and pulled a needle and thick gauge thread from the kit, as well as a square of gauze and the bottle of alcohol. His steely gaze found her in a wordless glare, and he offered a grunt at her attempt to raise his hackles. He knew better than to engage in her banter while they waited for the others to arrive, because when he got pulled into her shenanigans, he rarely found his way back out for hours after, and they had business to deal with first. Instead, rather than returning her cheeky comment with ire, he simply pulled the cap from the bottle and tipped it over a particularly nasty wound low on her neck. She was lucky that it hadn’t nicked an artery, he thought to himself, and without a thought to her wincing at the sting of it, he began to wipe away the grime and blood of battle to clean the already bubbling wound.

As Tierney came in from the ready room, her big beast heralding her arrival moments before her own person came into view. As the creature passed, the big man offered him a pass of his hand along his back, passively letting the dog press into him as little or as much as he pleased on his way by. He took up his needle and thread, then, and set at suturing the wound he’d just cleaned on Sawyer’s neck and gave the redhead’s question a shrug of one shoulder and a noncommittal grunt as he set about his crude but effective stitching of the flesh under his command. He pressed his lips together in a thin line of concentration as the fourth and final member of their little group announced herself, arriving quickly on the heels of the other. They were an odd group, if he said so himself, which he did sometimes. A born and raised fighter of the undead like the nature-loving techno freak, the abomination, the recovering addict, and the irreverent steel mill grunt. They were as incongruous and unimaginably different little knot of individuals as one could imagine, but they all had a commonality that overcame all of their differences, a desire to see people protected, shielded from the blot of darkness and fetid evil that this city had become, the denizens of Harper Rock having largely fallen into the clutches of the vile things that had taken root.

Each of them sought the eradication of that wicked weed that had dug its roots into the world and was fighting to spread like wildfire across the world. They were the only line between mankind and the monsters that claimed the night that really stood a chance.

Talia’s depiction of the idiot she’d tangoed with before her arrival earned a derisive snort from the man from the Pitt, and a shake of his head as he tied off the suture he’d finished, and set about cleaning the smaller wounds that peppered Sawyer’s person, applying bandages to the ones that required it. As the final arrival settled into her spot, he finished his work, and returned the needle and what remained of the thread to the kit, after cleaning them with a dab of alcohol.

He turned his attention to them, then, and worked his lips quietly a moment before he nodded to himself, as if ending an internal monologue with himself. “You’ve all heard about the attack on the server complex a while back, I’m sure. Turns out, the fallout of that entire debacle has caused a leaked list of this hole’s biggest and baddest pieces of garbage to get plastered all over the local net." He gave a little curl of his lip and a short exhale through his nose in his amusement at the turn of events. The Leeches had handed them the rope with which their monstrous necks would be hanged. "Contracts, bounties, bonds, whatever you want to call them, they’re out there for anyone to find. Our predicament is already dire, this entire region teetering on a knife’s edge of order over the abyssal maw of chaos and violence."

He lifted a hand to his beard, one digit tapping at his chin as he grimaced at a particular thought of the monumental task he was proposing and shook his head. "I think we should lend a hand in keeping order, seeing as a vast number of the names and faces that appear on the list have been exactly the sort that we have been after, and those that aren’t are only aiding the tip of balance that threatens to send us all off into a bloody freefall into extinction. I wanted to set you all down to discuss our options, to how we will approach something like this, if this is something that we decide to do." He dropped his hand from his chin and let his heavy palm rest across Sawyer's knee as he took inventory of their faces, sure that he still had their attention, gauging their interest as he went on. "We need to wipe out what criminal element we can, or, at the very least, get the scum to crawl back into its dank hiding places so that the local authorities can do their jobs in trying to control the real threat among us. I want to know your thoughts, before putting any ideas of committing our resources to that end.”

[Sawyer]

“Well, aren’t you just a barrel of laughs tonight,” she mused through clenched teeth, her fingers twisting into the fabric of his clothing at the first pass of the antiseptic. His idea of revenge, though painful, was well deserved - but still, it didn’t stop the former addict from allowing her lips to curve into a taunting smile. “You have to do better than that, Mister Chuckles.” Her laugh was quiet, and despite the way she toyed with him, she remained steady and still in his lap, long lashes fluttering as she hissed in a breath of discomfort with each press and brush of his rough fingers against her skin. It was a ritual she knew well - and one that she should have learned to avoid by now - but her recklessness was something that she was proud enough of to call a strength. As the needle pressed into her flesh, she tightened her fist around the bunched cloth in her palm, focusing on the way the cloth threatened to give beneath her vise grip. “******,” she breathed, the insult hissed endearingly between her teeth as she settled back into him.

Her eyes had barely closed when the soft click, click of claws against the floor bounced off the barren walls, signaling the arrival of her best friend - and her beast. Her pained features brightened into a smile, and she dropped her hand, nails scratching beneath the dog’s chin as he made his way by, before that same hand lifted to flip Tierney off. “What can I say? I like to keep you fucks on your toes. Someone has to have a personality around here,” she replied easily, swatting at Ephraim as he gave a sharp tug to the thread. Dipping her head, she whispered something into his ear before straightening once more, tipping her head as the blood thief followed quickly on the heels of the sorcerer. Ephraim still held disdain for what the woman was, but it didn’t bother her in the slightest. Had it not been for the man and his gang of high and mighty bastards (most of which were lingering in the halls of the hub somewhere), she would have been in the same boat. Even now, she swore she could still feel the faint hum of vampiric blood in her veins, though Osmund claimed it was all in her head every time she dared to bring it up. Like that old pervert knows a damned thing about anything, she thought as she arched a brow at Talia’s statement with a chuckle.

That was as far as she got before their leader began to speak, and before he’d gotten a sentence in, she was already beginning to picture shoving a pack of gauze into his mouth. It wasn’t because she didn’t care for what he had to say, but he could be so uptight about everything that it drove her mad. Instead of following through with the action, she instead tipped her head to rest it against his shoulder, exhaustion finally starting to sink into her bones as she listened. His voice, despite reminding her of the teacher from Boy Meets World, soothed her as she tried to focus on exactly what he was saying. “I swear you read a thesaurus every night before bed,” she stated before sighing, a slender, tanned hand running across her dirtied face as she mulled over his request. “I’m fine with hunting them all down and putting them in the ground where they belong. These ******* fangers have wandered these streets long enough, but I do think we’ll have better luck following this list you keep talking about instead of going on a killing spree and exhausting ourselves.”

Working her tongue across her canine, she toyed with the wrinkles she’d created in his shirt and nodded, “We need to do something. We’re a big enough presence, and they’re weak, despite what the **** they think. It won’t be easy, but I’ve been… tinkering... with some things that might help us out. I just need to get the rest of that list from you, babe.” With another shrug of her shoulders, she glanced towards Tierney and flicked her wrist in the fire-haired sorcerer’s direction. Sawyer herself wasn’t much for serious conversation - at least, not before she had all of the information, so she fell silent as she listened to the others.

[Tierney]

As she noticed the full extent of her best friend’s wounds, Tierney resisted the roll of her eyes. “Idiot.” She thought, knowing very well when the minor wounds would heal, she would heal one of the worst in time. Stoirm, as happy as ever to greet the others, trotted over for attention. Unlike her owner, she was friendly to those the sorceress showed tolerance for. It helped significantly in Sawyer’s favor that when Tierney wasn’t looking, the great white beast received treats that she would not normally receive. Bits of fresh meat or fish, good and savory to taste. Ephraim knew boundaries and for that, it was unsurprising when she leaned into the scratch before retreating to Tierney. As Talia would enter, the large animal got up to receive attention once more, as if starved from it. Quietly, Tierney said, “Traitor” as Stoirm eventually settled in the middle of the floor where it was cool.

“Keeping us on our toes. Running up your fiancé’s blood pressure. Shocking me with your questionable amount of mental intellect… as well as your uncanny ability to hunt down sealed bags of snacks up four flights of stairs.”

She ticked them off her fingers before she crossed her leg over her knee and leaned back.

Upon hearing the blood thief’s words, Tierney snorted. “A stupid fanger? You act as if they’re all intelligent.” Her eyebrow lifted, the smirk toying across her lips before she gave a shake of her head after listening to Talia. The blood thief wasn’t her favorite, but she wasn’t horrid. She was tolerable, but a strong worker and she made it so the sorceress didn’t have to worry about her business. Like Tierney’s mother, she messed with their cursed blood, drank it to gain their strength. It would be something Tierney never wanted to understand.

She couldn’t.

“It works off of notoriety, those who hack into it can either delete or upload the evidence provided against criminals be they human or vampire.”

With her head tipped back, Tierney looked at the ceiling as her fingers found a loose curl falling from its sanctuary that evening. Again, her mind drifted to Harrison. Hannigan? “Whoops.” Theoretically, they could go about learning their prize in two ways. Talia could look into it, or… “You’re about two days short of me already implementing a different system to catch and record the names for us to keep on hand.” That being said, it wasn’t as if she would be against blood spill. The entire concept of it was enjoyable, eradicating the pests. One more down merely allowed her father to grow more tiresome as his men were becoming more and more obsolete. The newer generation - at least in the position of the girls, as Ephraim wasn’t exactly young and beautiful - had already begun their move to take over. She pulled on the strand of unruly red hair and stretched it out before admiring her nails.

As she realized she was being looked at, she glanced down at the man with her usual passive expression and continued to look at the ceiling. Tierney didn’t do large crowds. She didn’t like groups. She liked her plants. The brief idea of wondering how many plants that she and Sawyer could work around in the building itself played interest in her mind. Already, the women had turned the flooded area into a frog pond complete with lily pads and a circulation filter to keep it from getting grimy.

How it worked with the corpses locked away… well.

“Underestimating the enemy and the creature will lead to our demise, Sawyer.”

Finally, she returned her attention back to the three and stretched her arms out above her head once Ephraim had finished speaking, then Sawyer. “I agree with the idea of having a dedicated list of targets. Between the voodoo we can pull, as well as Talia using their powers against them, we’ll be able to at least acknowledge which is which.” Although she wasn’t against stabbing humans that were stupid, as well. She had once made the recommendation to use women and children, which hadn’t gone over well with former members, but there was a difference between baiting and actively allowing someone to get harmed.

They had tomes.

They could set traps.

“We’re going to have to have contingency plans in place. Rituals to lock down the building when they ever get the balls to retaliate.” Which, she thought gleefully, meant she could certainly have more hydroponics involved. She was as versed in fae language as Ephraim when it came to rituals, so it meant they could work it out. “It isn’t just us in here, after all. Don’t want to become another Longslade.” She considered her cousin that they had buried shortly after, her mind drifting to the aunt that had screamed at her father for his carelessness. In the Savage chapter, it didn’t matter if you were young or old. You had to learn how to fight. Her hand reached up unconsciously as she rubbed at hidden scars from where she’d dealt with that very lesson.

“We’re also going to need to look at increasing our manpower, I feel. Marnie’s still learning, the one I told you about. I’m sure there’s others here that are looking for an area. Talia?” She glanced towards the blood thief.