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It was a surprise for both of them when the blonde was dragged half-way across the city to stand in his office space with no announcement. Lorelai might have been struggling to come to terms with her sanity in that instant when the world blurred away from one thing and into quite another, but Levi was quickly assured that he was the one responsible for this ****. He’d been so worried about her safety that he had summoned her here, into guaranteed danger. Good work, idiot, but at least she had him to protect her and Levi had her to reassure him that he wasn’t going to lose her without knowing about it. At least the Italian could see that she was fine, in one single piece of glorious brightness reminding him of a summer that didn’t burn his skin, that made him smile despite the predicament and the pain that he was in. When blue eyes turned on him, he saw that beloved cheerfulness in her flee, sweeping away his smile prematurely. She came over him like a wave then, her warm pink hand pushing his away from the sight of the slowly-healing wound. Levi didn’t mind her fussing over him like a mother hen just this once. Umber eyes lost their fierce intensity and slid closed as a bloodied hand – stained and only slightly damp still – came to coil around her locks. He breathed in the scent of her and leant forward to kiss her brow.

“Sorry… I didn’t mean to drag you here.”

Levi spoke in a low voice that was almost a purr. The guilt was obvious in the velvet sound and although Levi wanted to keep the distance between them, he also wanted to pull her close and drown in the sweetness of her, forsaking this God damn place and everything in it. The Italian couldn’t forget, however, and maybe the deities above were done with his ******** cursing just enough to allow Lorelai to step sideways out of the danger zone, for umber eyes to open in time and alert him to the fact that they had a visitor. The guy appeared like a phantasm, but swung his blade which was literal and thick at the Vampiro. Cold metal lacerated the Italian’s left arm as Levi had enough momentum in him to swing around, shield Lorelai, and throw his arm up. Just a fraction of a second was all that separated this reality from a worse one, where the blonde might have taken the blow instead. Levi didn’t want to think about any of that, he just wanted to rip this man’s throat out and spit down his neck. The defensive arm was thrown down, elongated claws singing through the air as sharp as the blade which had taken a chunk out of it, but there was nothing there – no one. The attacker had vanished and Levi was furious.

"Porca vacca!" the Italian howled, and stepped into the room away from the blonde as if he was expecting another blow to come out of the air at any moment.

Blood ran down his arm, over his wrist, pouring between his hook-like fingers before dispersing into the air like paint flecks caught in a rising breeze. This new wound wasn’t nearly as harmful – or indeed as painful – as the hole their sniper’s bullet had driven through his chest, but the surprise assault made him twice as furious. Umber eyes glared into the room, searching and expecting another wave of attacks. If these bastards could teleport in without warning, strike and disappear without consequence, then Lorelai and him were fucked. Nevertheless, the option of retreating came to the Italian’s mind for around half a second before being obliterated by his pride. The Italian would not run from these fuckers. He didn’t care how many there were, how heavily armed to the teeth they were, or how many powers they had coming out of their asses. Retreat, at least for him, was not on his to-do list, not even on his back-up to-do list. Levi would take them on head-first, teeth bared, nails drawn and barking like a rabid dog, and the only way he was leaving this building was if he died or walked out of there victorious.

“Don’t know,” the Italian growled back between shark teeth. “But he’s gonna die too.”

Of course, Levi wasn’t thinking in that moment. Consumed by pain, adrenaline and that primitive urge to not only defend what was his but to avenge it; reasoning with him against taking these people’s lives would most certainly be pointless. The Vampiro was in hunting mode – every sense as sharp and keen as the blade of a scalpel. His ears listened out to the tiniest flutter of movement; umber eyes held a steely focus on the room around him and, in particular, the door of his office; his nostrils flared slightly with each inhale, tasting the flavour of the air like snakes seeking prey; and even his skin was primed for any shift of movement that would disturb the space in between. That wasn’t to say that Levi’s perception and reflexes were without fault. The blood which had left him had made him slower, the injury to his arm made him weaker, and while the wound to his chest had healed nicely, the Vampiro was still bothered by the phantom pain. As much as the body was prepped for regeneration, the mind could only catch-up so quickly. For almost 30 years, the man was accustomed bullets and knives resulting in surgery and scars, not some blood loss and a day or two’s worth of taking it a bit easier than normal. It was the expectation of pain that wasn’t readily dropped and that was probably why, despite the Vampiro’s enhanced regenerative properties, that he still scarred even in this life after life.

It was a few moments later that the Vampiro was alerted to another presence in the building. With one of the windows in the main room compromised, with computers and tables smashed and office equipment strewn about, one could only be so careful about moving in complete silence. Besides, their leap into the building itself wasn’t exactly stealthy and soundless; physics just didn’t work that way. Clothing and weapons swayed with movement, all impacts made shockwaves of sound even if feet weren’t crunching over glass and steel and flesh. Despite what the good old phrase suggested about graves and silence, even there the trees would sway, the ground would move, the birds would sing and the beetles would dig and chew. Movement created sound unless it was supernaturally repressed and that seemed to be the new rule for physics. Still, as much as Levi was certain that someone was there, and as much as he wanted to rush in and rip the intruders limb from limb, he couldn’t rush into an attack. What if he was wrong about their identities? What if he was rushing foolhardily into friendly fire? Levi hadn’t had a chance to check on the whereabouts of Shiro, after all. The Japanese man might have been caught in the explosion, or maybe he was just walking in now to see the aftermath. Either way, Levi couldn’t risk it. He would have to be more careful about investigating the main room and he would certainly have to make sure it was not a trap.

A technique that Levi was most familiar with was disappearing from sight and approaching targets with anonymity until the final moments. The cost of implementing the technique was really insignificant and despite his avid use of supernatural enchantments and abilities today, the Vampiro wasn’t beyond resorting to this technique yet again if need be. It never really failed and never really got old – except probably to the opposition – but then, Levi was pretty much at his magical limit. There were an unknown number of enemies approaching with an unknown level of skill and an unknown degree of arsenal at their disposal. Playing it safe was the next best option to fleeing and since that card had strictly been removed from play, Levi had no choice but to go with his gut instinct. He knew there would be a gamble between using his powers for intelligence and using them for assault and defence. If he chose poorly on the assault front, he could potentially be putting lives – well, Shiro’s or someone of equal important – at danger. On the other hand, if he chose poorly on the intel front, he might be running head-long into a guaranteed massacre with Lorelai left to follow him or flee for her life. At least if the latter occurred, Levi could be sure that Prudence would protect Lorelai and he really didn’t mind dying in battle... again. Nevertheless, Levi had to make a decision quickly – two pairs of footsteps were closing in on the passageway that led to his office.

“We have visitors,” Levi growled softly – almost a whisper to even Vampiri ears. “If it gets bad… Run.”

The Italian didn’t spare the blonde a look as he spoke; he focused on the door and what he would do to those approaching guests. Their purposeful footsteps gave him little to no indication of their intent and neither did he recognise anything in the way these people moved. Their caution and determination could just have likely been for expecting trouble to come to them as inciting it, but the more Levi heard, the more he became convinced that he was to expect the latter. If it was Shiro approaching, then the man had drastically changed his mannerisms. Even the Ninja footed Shark had characteristics to his sneaking, ones the Vampiro was much more able to detect now that he was… well… much more able to detect them. The same could be said for anyone else the Vampiro knew. Caro and Barzetti certainly weren’t stealthy enough to pull off this approach and neither was the aging Italian, Gino Valachi. As for Gino’s men or anyone else’s, they were disposable, and since Levi had the excuse of circumstance under his belt, he had all he needed to decide that the best defence was a good offence.

The narrow corridor that led to the dead-end space before Levi’s office wouldn’t be too good to fight in – as evidenced by Levi’s scrap with the Paladin earlier – but it would be a good place to set up an ambush. Unfortunately, there was only so much the Shadow could do to set up a trap. Summoning a servant creature to fight for him might have been a good idea, but Levi would have to be in the area to summon it and unleash its might upon those hapless creatures… or, that’s how he figured this thing worked. The Italian had only summoned a beast of that nature once before and never in a circumstance quite like this. The only thing that could stop them shooting him on sight as he entered the corridor to summon the creature were the Shadows, so after all the agonising between choosing one option over the other, it seemed like Levi was combining these strategies into one dangerous assault. The concealment technique would get him into the corridor without detection and once he was there, standing invisibly in opposition to the two mortals – close enough to hear their hearts – he would summon the Sidhe: a Fae creature of howling wind. Once the creature was summoned, Levi would lose his concealment of course, but that small fact was insignificant in the face of a clawing squall. The Sidhe would tear at them and in its wake, so would Levi.

His words hit her as hard as if he'd slapped her. Violence was something she abhorred, and every instinct in her body told her that they needed to leave. Her conscience was right though, Levi would stay, and if he was staying, then she was staying. She couldn't even think about him taking a life. It was too much and yet even as she prepared herself for the worst, she hoped for the best.

Perhaps it's over?
I doubt it, but keep your fingers crossed if it makes you feel better.

Lorelai frowned a little. She didn't like it when her inner self mocked her. She wasn't stupid, and they both knew that. The action itself coincided with Levi telling her to run, which while being a perfectly reasonable request, left her cold. There was no way the blonde was leaving without her man, no matter what he said. In her eyes, it was better to sacrifice herself in his place, as his life was worth more than hers. He had people that depended on him and an office to restore to order, things he could not do from another realm. Lorelai on the other hand was reasonable certain that if the worst should befall her, that the world could move happily along without her. Levi might miss her and Pru might wonder why she wasn't at work, but neither would really suffer for her absence, or so she believed.

While listening for intruders, Lorelai tried to find the nearest camera signals to see if the building had internal security equipment, unfortunately she found nothing of use, as it either didn't exist or it had been disabled. They would be working blind. This fact didn't seem to faze Levi, who was holding still and ready for what might come.

The humans didn't see or hear Levi coming, despite the fact that they were actively looking to find him. The debris littered about the place slowed them down as they tried to keep their steps as silent as possible. When Levi appeared out of no-where, trying to attack Faye, the blood thief in the group, his attack struck home. His movements were so quick, so quiet, she didn't even have a chance of avoiding the Sidhe he unleashed upon them. Being slightly behind her, as he was watching their six, Del had not been the obvious target of the pair, meaning he had a chance to strike out at the creature attacking his team mate. No words were exchanged as Del swung his blade at Levi.

Unseen by all until now, Lorelai peaked around the edge of the doorway. She didn't want to get involved but she couldn't allow Levi to face the threat alone. Confused and overwhelmed by the situation at hand, Lorelai inadvertently overwhelmed the mind of the male as she projected all of her thoughts and concerns into his mind. It wouldn't be enough to save Levi from the attack that had already occurred, but it would affect the efficiency of the next strike, should there be one.

As the screeching gale blasted down the narrow space, pressurising the force of the blast into a miniature hurricane, Levi came barrelling in behind it. Hands with claws like savage weapons were aimed at the female’s throat, and the push of supernatural speed had him within striking range in a blink of an eye. The Sidhe worked as both the distraction and the preliminary strike, opening the way for him to land a critical blow at the female Blood Thief. Vulnerable and off guard, neither mortal could deflect or shield themselves against what had come out of the black, but luck saved them from a fatal assault. Levi’s aim came in just off its mark, tearing a wide gash across the top of her shoulders and skirting the edge of her neck. She lunged backward from the blow, the spray of blood as impressive as a firework in her wake, but the Italian couldn’t say he was wholly satisfied with his work. The ***** still had a pulse, didn’t she, and he’d missed her jugular vein by so scant an inch that he was as furious as she must have been from coming under fire from the surprise *****-slap. This was why he preferred guns because even in the heat of an exchange, his bullets rarely missed and he was still clear to get the **** out of the way of any return fire. Still, Levi didn’t have the time to stop and critique anything about his form and position as the counter attack came lashing in, almost predictably, from behind the injured female.

Umber eyes caught the glimmer of light a fraction of a second too late to dodge it, and his mind went straight into offence mode once again. Levi threw his left arm up a second time, feeling the déjà vu strike a cold, hard reminder into his forearm. Only, the Sorcerer must have put too much weight into that blow because when he pulled back to release his blade, Levi felt his whole arm tug along with it. The steel was stuck and Levi grinned, this look of crazed satisfaction marring his features, before he shifted to his right and tugged back. The Vampiro’s superior strength dragged the male closer, and by the time it occurred to the mortal to just let go of the blade instead of trying to play tug-of-war, he was already within pelting range. By now, Lorelai’s assault on the Sorcerer’s mind had taken hold as well, so there was little the mortal could do but to face the full force of Levi’s attack. The Italian’s left arm made a backward swing, and with bone as hard as steel accompanied by that sword stuck in its side, the Sorcerer was sent flying into the nearby wall like he’d been struck by a bulldozer. Levi didn’t suspect the wall would stand the assault, much less the male, so he returned his attention to the last female of the group expecting to take her down just as quickly.

The Italian was unaware of Lorelai’s involvement or witness to these crimes, but even if he had been, his actions were unlikely to be have been altered. This kind of physical brutality wasn’t generally his style, but, with his body thrumming with rage and pain, it sure felt good to let loose the teeth and claws and give that monster within some space to roar. Ordinarily, the Mafioso was methodical in his approach to violence, where death was clean-cut and came from the secrecy of the shadows. As a matter of fact, Levi rarely got into situations where outlandish murder was the only solution; it was only since he’d come to Harper Rock and had sunk into its dark underbelly had atrocities like this become just another fact of living. It was strange how so much bloodshed and hostility could be cloaked so well from the eyes of the world, but then again, seeing as how he’d come under attack from these ******* mortals, it obviously hadn’t been hidden all that well. Levi was certain that he’d been careful with all his undertakings, so how they’d found him and made a target out of his life and business was a complete ******* mystery. Obviously it was true what they said: you could ignore the world and all its devils, but that doesn’t save you from evil…

Umber eyes burned with ambition, hate and rage, projecting ceaseless malice onto the woman with one gun quivering pathetically in her hand. She was outfoxed, outgunned and outdone here, but at least she knew it; the flare of fear she revealed in her trembling lips made those umber eyes burn darker. If she was trying for an apology, she wouldn’t be forgiven. Some merciful part of Levi’s brain might have given the woman the chance to flee since she was so thoroughly fucked, but mercy was a long forgotten dream of a wisp of a fleeting gesture that the Italian had been considering in that moment. Mercy wasn’t even deserved here as far as he was concerned. Where was their mercy when they came blasting through the Levitan Headquarters, killing men and women without a ******* flicker of guilt? Those Mafiosi might have been criminals, but they were people too – people with loved ones, families to go home to at night, people they needed to protect and fight for. Where was their mercy in coming in unprovoked, attacking his people, attacking him like he was some kind of dragon sitting on a pot of gold? **** them and their fucked up imaginings of morality. Where was righteousness in spilling blood for the crime of spilling blood? This was vengeance – pure and unapologetic and unjustifiable. These motherfuckers had come in for a fight, they’d come into his lair to slay a monster, and they were going to find out just how accommodating the Vampiro could be.

If the Blood Thief was going to shoot him, she would have to empty her magazine straight into his face to stop him, and she would have to do it quickly; Levi was coming in hot. Faye may have had the skills of a Killer – with supernatural strength, speed and dexterity – but whether she had the will to use those stolen abilities was yet to be seen. Although her injuries weren’t fatal, she’d had a lot of the fight already beaten out of her – not least because he’d torn an almighty gash across her chest, but because he’d mercilessly dispatched her two comrades and now she was alone, eye-to-eye with this beast who felt nothing but for the thrill of killing her too. She could probably see it in his eyes, that burning emptiness of autonomous rage that stole life as desperately as black holes. Faye had very few options as it was. She could try to run and see how far she could get; the Vampire wouldn’t be able to follow her into daylight and if she ran through a public area, he would be forced to let her go. Alternatively she could attack him, try to kill the beast before he could kill her; the Vampire was already heavily wounded and he couldn’t have had much fight in him either. The only downside to that plan was if she messed up, if she wasn’t quick enough or strong enough or if her aim wasn’t true, she would be dead – the mission failed.

There was one other option that neither Blood Thief nor Vampire was immediately aware of, and it wasn’t until Lorelai had stepped into the open, that it became an option at all. Faye saw the blonde over the shoulder of the Italian and frowned heavily. Del had mentioned that there had been another person there when he’d used his powers to assault Levi in his office, but neither Del nor Faye could get a read on Lorelai – what she was, why she was here and what she could do. At the time they’d decided that it didn’t matter because if this girl, dressed in sunlight, was on the side of the Vampire, then she was a target too. When Faye’s attention switched from Shadow to Telepath, Levi saw the flicker of intent in those eyes with clarity, then bloodcurdling rage. He didn’t know why she was looking down the corridor instead of at the immediate threat, but that telling look in her eyes gave him enough of a clue as to what would happen next. Levi stomped hard on Faye’s third option. She was not going to touch Lorelai.

“Don’t,” Levi warned, catching her attention immediately. He couldn’t have been more than two feet away from her and the strength of his voice – not the volume, but the pure weight of it pressing into the air – thrummed like a fire across her skin. “I’m telling you now,” he continued. “You’re better off running for it. At least you have a proportion of a fragment of a chance of living if you do. But if you go for her… If you hurt her… There is no chance. Zero. Your life’s forfeit. And I’ll make sure you’ll feel your ******* mistake with every inch of bone, droplet of blood, every ******* muscle and fibre and even you’re ******* soul. So run.”

Whether he knew it, acknowledged it or accepted it, Levi was cursed with pride. Nobody threatened him and got away with it. Nobody came charging into his territory and lived to see the other end. Nobody stole what was rightfully his and got to brag about it. Nobody laughed in the face of his generosity. And nobody dared to point a gun at his woman and lived to pull the trigger. It didn’t even take him a fraction of a second to form a plan and enact it. Even the mortal’s body couldn’t respond to the swiftness of what had happened, at least until the blood began to spurt like fire from the stub of her wrist. A flash of lightning had stolen her hand. The gun, still clasped in dead fingers, fell to the floor with a sickening thud. Levi had taken the Sorcerer’s sword, which had been numbly stuck in his forearm all this time, and used it in a gruesome strike against Faye.

Well, that was one way to disarm a threat.

Swords were never the Italian’s go-to weapons. He preferred the impersonal approach, the shot from out of the dark, the kind of unseen death only afforded to him by a firearm. There was more than physical distance between him and his opponent when there were pistols involved, and it was never a bad thing to distance yourself from leaving evidence on a victim. Although melee weapons like this weren’t his preferred choice, the Italian still knew how to use them. Shiro was a skilled swordsman, a twisted Samurai by all accounts, and Levi just happened to not like to lose at anything. He never figured he would be as good as the Japanese man, who had cold steel coursing through his veins, but it was satisfying to know that with enough training, Levi had learned that he could cause devastation nevertheless. His hesitancy to take her head off next was more out of curiosity, out of morbid fascination, and the cruel need to extend the sweetness of his vengeance. He’d given this ***** his mercy despite not wanting to, he’d let her have the chance to maybe save her life because he knew that was what Lorelai would want him to do, and how had she repaid his kindness? She’d snubbed it, spat in his face, and done the very thing he warned her against. She thought she was going after his weakness, but she was really chasing her own death. The stupid ***** deserved what was coming to her, no ifs or buts or maybes, and Levi was going to enjoy watching the life drain out of her eyes.

She was screaming by now, now that it was finally real. Faye had never expected him to just take her hand clean off – least of all with the sword of her comrade. She’d probably never seen this much blood before either, even if a lot of it was covering her attacker. Black and white and red all over turned him into a punch line; one that wasn’t funny unless you were some kind of psychopath. Levi was some kind of psychopath, but the amusement didn’t show on his features. Dark eyes, lost to furious revenge, watched the colour drain from her face as she moved away from him out of instinct. Her backward steps encouraged the predator in him to stalk toward her calmly, quietly, determined; unperturbed by the severed limb in his path. Whatever thoughts Faye might have had now about running or attacking were useless in the face of her crimes. There would be no mercy now, but for the time it took for him to decide just how to steal her life away. Hunger clawed at the Vampiro every second of every day, and having lost so much blood to his attackers, Levi was seriously considering the prospect of eating her. It would be a fitting end, really. She and her goons had come to murder him for being a monster and now the monster would take her life. But maybe that wasn’t justice at all, maybe it would just seal her away as a martyr to the rest of her kind. The idea alone made him tighten the grip he had on the sword.

“I warned you.”

Another flash. He didn’t miss the jugular vein this time.