“Now ain’t this just great? The daring duo, back together again for a reunion tour.”


    On the tail of his pronouncement, Seth turned on his heels to walk backward down the damp sidewalk, long brown coat flapping a bit in the breeze as he passed in and out of the illumination cast by the flickering streetlights. Smirking, he added, “With a few additions, of course.”


    It was, for certain, an eclectic group. Beyond Seth, they consisted of Asenath, the daughter of his sire and the girl he considered a sister; Namythiet, his tiny yet fierce apprentice who happened to be a pixie; her animal guardian Clubber the green sabertooth tiger cub; and Asenath’s frequent partner, the mercenary Pooka named Twister. Senny and Twister walked alongside one another, while Namythiet rode on the back of her emerald-furred companion.


    In response to Seth’s words, Asenath simply gave the old vampire a brief eye roll. “First, we were never a duo. Ever. You’d have to actually care about someone besides yourself before we could be an actual duo.”


    Maybe it was unfair. But the vampire girl had seen Seth walk away from people who needed help too often for her to forgive him just because he tended to be charismatic about it. If something didn’t directly affect him, he had no problem with just letting bad things happen.


    Still walking backwards, Seth put a hand over his heart while adopting a look of mock pain. “Ouch. You wound me, little sister. Come on. We’re here, aren’t we? All fighting the good fight.”


    “Yeah,” she replied, “because Gaia Sinclaire paid you an obscene amount of money to be here.”


    The man huffed indignantly at that before his head shook as he turned back the other way. “Now, I take offense at that. As if I would’ve spent this much time on this hunk of rock and still needed cash. The lovely headmistress paid me in a couple of unique, rare artifacts, not money.”


    Though it had been raining all day long in the city of Baltimore where they were walking, the storm had, for the moment at least, let up somewhat. Still, the street was relatively empty, save for the occasional passerby or two hurrying to get home before the rain started once more.


    “I’m the one she paid in cash,” Twister put in, raising a hand as they passed one of those small  groups rushing for cover. “I like cash. It’s fun to roll around in. Especially if you’re naked.”


    Sighing as the three random humans they had just passed did a quick double-take and immediately started whispering, Asenath lowered her voice. “Twist, seriously? Please don’t talk about rolling around naked when we’re near humans. You still look like you’re twelve at best.”


    “Oh, right, sorry.” Turning that way then, Twister called to the group in the distance. “It’s okay, I’m actually almost a hundred and eight! Or three, depending on which way you count!”


    Turning back, she found Senny stopped, arms outstretched in an exasperated shrug. “Why?” the vampire demanded.


    “Oh, chill,” the Pooka replied with an incorrigible grin. “Who are they gonna tell? Besides, we’ll be in and out of here before they even get home. How much further is this place, anyway?”


    “We’re here!” Namythiet piped up excitedly then, flying up from her mount to hover in the air between them with a pocket notebook as tall as she was clutched in both hands. “I mean, according to Miss Gaia’s messages, it’s right over there.” She used the notebook to point toward an old, long-since closed down and boarded up video rental store across the street from them.


    “Right.” Glad for the distraction, Senny stared at the building appraisingly for a moment. “We get inside, get the thing for Gaia, and get out again. Then we move on to the next one on the list.”


    The list was an extensive one. The Crossroads Headmistress was paying incredibly well for them to acquire a number of incredibly rare materials, some one-of-a-kind. Neither Senny nor any of the others knew exactly why the woman wanted them, only that she was working with someone else they hadn’t actually met on some kind of secret project that required the components. Gaia had sought them out, Twister and Asenath through Gabriel Prosser and the other two through Wonderland (the woman showing up there had caused a bit of a scene, though the fact that she had effortlessly killed the Nocen who were attacking the place at the time had helped).


    “So,” Seth started while folding his arms against his chest, “same plan we talked about?”


    Asenath nodded. “Go. We’ll wait for you and Namythiet to do your thing. And Seth?” She paused before sighing. “Just be careful. Gaia wouldn’t send all of us if it wasn’t dangerous.”


    “Aww.” The man gave her a sly grin at that. “See, I knew you cared about me after all.”


    Opening her mouth to retort, Asenath paused before giving her head a shake. “Just go.”


    Regardless of how often they disagreed, Seth had been like a brother or an uncle to her for basically the girl’s entire extensive life. And he was one of the only connections she had left to her father. She didn’t want him to die. She just wanted him to not be such an asshole so often.


    “Don’t worry, Miss Senny!” Namythiet put in cheerfully as she buzzed over in front of her face. The pixie had dropped her big notebook in the pouch that Clubber was wearing like a backpack. Now, she held up what looked like an old-school classic Gameboy that had been heavily modified, with several new seemingly random components tacked onto it, including a pair of antennas sticking out of the top left and right corners, and what looked like a string of Christmas lights leading down to something inside of Clubber’s pack that kept blinking on and off. “We’ll do our part lickity-split, and then we can all go in and kick those monsters’ butts!”


    With that declaration, Namythiet and Clubber set off, with Seth following behind after giving Asenath a brief, casual salute. As they left, Twister looked to her friend. “Man, you are upset.”


    “Of course, I’m upset,” the vampire girl replied while looking away. “Flick and the others are on the other side of the universe, Shiori’s losing her mind, and I can’t do anything about it. If Felicity dies out there, do you have any idea what it’ll do to Shiori? What it’ll do to…” She swallowed.


    “What it’ll do to you,” Twister finished for her. “I know. She’s your friend, Senny. She’s a Heretic who actually listened to you. I mean, before we remembered that there used to be a whole revolution full of ‘em. It’s a big deal. I–shit, I’m sorry we’re still stuck here. But at least we’re doing something, right? I mean, if it’s for Sinclaire, it’s gotta be important. Even if she won’t tell us what it is.” Pausing then, she looked to Asenath pointedly. “She really didn’t tell you, huh?”


    “Nope.” Senny shook her head, leaning against the nearby streetlight as she gave a small sigh. “All I know is that the things she wants us to get are important, and she can’t do it herself because of the eyes on her. Plus, if they figured out what she was going after, things might get bad. That’s why she’s got some things on the list she doesn’t actually need. Just to throw off anyone who finds out what we’re collecting and tries to figure out how it all goes together.”


    “Wait.” Squinting at her then, Twister quickly demanded, “So some of this shit that we’re going to be busting our asses to get is completely useless? And we don’t even know which ones?”


    “Not useless,” Asenath corrected. “Just not used for the same thing. Everything she wants us to get is useful, it’s just that they don’t all go together.” She eyed the Pooka. “Wanna back out?”


    Twister elbowed her. “Of course not. I’m with you, fam, you know that. Besides…” She sighed. “I’m kinda antsy too, I guess. Might as well do something useful if we can’t get to Flick.”


    With that said, she looked over to Asenath curiously. “How’s Abe doing? You check in on him?”


    If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.


    “Of course,” Senny replied with a cough. “I promised Flick I’d keep an eye on her dad. Just because he’s with Prosser doesn’t change that. And you know Lincoln is just his first name.”


    “Sure,” the dusky-skinned girl replied, grinning at her companion. “But I like calling him Abe. It’s like our thing, you know? Especially since I can actually talk to him now, instead of barking or meowing or making whatever other animal noise happened to be appropriate at the time.”


    “Or even inappropriate,” Senny pointed out with a wry look then. “He told me about the time you actually barked at him as a cat and he thought he was going crazy or something.”


    Snickering a bit at the reminder, Twister gave her a thumbs up. “That was awesome. You should’ve seen his face when this sweet little stray kitty comes up and then barks at him like a Doberman. Totally worth it. Hell, I was kinda thinking about seeing how he felt about a squirrel that could roar like a lion, or a bird that mooed before he went and broke the BS effect.”


    Before Asenath could respond to that, the phone in her pocket buzzed. She tugged it out and glanced that way before nodding. “Seth says the spell barrier’s down. Time to do our part.”


    “Great.” With a broad smile, Twister cracked her knuckles, then popped her neck before starting to stride that way. “I’ve been waiting to break some shit. Let’s go have some fun.”


    Crossing the street, she was already starting to grow… a lot. By the time the Pooka reached the other side, she didn’t look like a little girl at all. No, she was something much, much less subtle.


    Trumpeting triumphantly, the twelve-foot tall, thirteen thousand pound African elephant charged across the parking lot, slamming into and through the front entrance of the boarded up store. With an explosion of debris and the protesting shriek of shattering wood, brick, and metal, the doors (and a good portion of the entire wall) were torn through like they weren’t even there.


    “Well,” Asenath muttered to herself, “if that didn’t manage to draw their attention, nothing will.”


    With that, she took a breath before launching herself that way. Her figure was an indistinct blur as she fairly flew through the opening that Twister had made and into the ‘store’ proper.


    For a place that had looked as rundown from the outside as it had, the inside of the place was much better kept. And it didn’t look at all like a store, for that matter. There were heavy duty safes all along most of the walls, protected by a mixture of advanced technology and spells.


    According to Gaia, this was a place where people of very… unsavory reputations kept some of their more important artifacts or valuables. They were protected by a third party, who specialized in being discreet and in keeping their client’s belongings both private and safe from thieves.


    Well, they were about to get a bit of a ding against their reputation. As she sprinted into the room, Senny saw about a dozen men in the midst of jerking up from the table in the middle of the room where they had been playing some kind of card game. The majority were at least mostly humanoid-looking at first glance, though the one at the end looked like an anthropomorphic rhino in a rhinestone-covered sweatsuit and gold chains. Several of the others, meanwhile, had different colored skin, too many or too few eyes, or other small reminders that they weren’t actually human. And all of them were packing weapons of one kind or another.


    Two of the men in particular, both of them with enhanced speed and reflexes that almost rivaled Asenath’s, already had some kind of advanced, deadly-looking rifles raised and pointed at the elephant, their fingers starting to pull the triggers as they sighted in on the obvious threat.


    Shooting across the room in another blur of motion, Senny caught one of the rifles by the barrel, shoving it aside before lashing out with a kick at the table itself. The gun in her hand went off with a blinding flash, sending a red laser through one of the other rising men and the nearby wall. Meanwhile, the table itself was flung up and back to slam into the other gunman, knocking him aside just as he pulled the trigger so that his shot went up through the ceiling.


    From the corner of her eye, Senny saw one of the other men disappear into the floor, clearly running to call for help. Another turned into a gaseous cloud, while a third grew a foot and a half in an instant, sprouting four new hairy arms and disgusting mandibles. Great. A were-spider. Those were always fun to deal with.


    Twister had grabbed one of the men in her trunk, literally throwing him out of the building and across the street with a panicked scream before he hit the wall of the distant apartment building.


    The rhino-man batted the overturned table out of his way before lunging toward the big target that Twister represented. Unfortunately for him, that target abruptly wasn’t so big. Twister instantly shifted from elephant down to a tiny chipmunk, and rhino-man stumbled in confusion.


    With a cocky chittering sound, the little chipmunk raced up the man’s leg, over his back, and perched right on top of his head.


    Then she turned into an elephant again, her mass filling the room and knocking several aside just as they had started to move through that space, and squished the rhino beneath herself.


    Chaos filled the relatively small room. Senny and Twister had the element of surprise, since these guys had been relying heavily on their magical warning system that Seth and Namythiet had taken down (the former with his special knife, while the pixie used her technological prowess to make sure that the people inside hadn’t been sent any kind of alert about it). But they still weren’t exactly helpless. And there would be reinforcements coming any minute. If Asenath and the others were going to get away with what they needed, they had to be quick.


    To that end, Asenath yanked the rifle out of the first man’s hands, tucking it against one shoulder and pulled the trigger while taking aim at the next threat. Nothing happened, save for a rebukeful buzz. Which meant that the person in charge of these goons was clearly smart enough to make sure that only they could use their weapons, rather than an outsider. Terrific.


    Oh well, it could still be used as a club. Flipping the gun around, she hurled it into the next man’s face instead, before twisting aside as one of the other guards swung a sword at her. As the blade cut through the air an inch from her face, Senny stepped in and pivoted to catch the man’s outstretched arm. She heaved, throwing him over her shoulder while stripping the weapon from his grasp. They might not be able to utilize the guns, but a sword she could use.


    Or not, as the sword immediately shocked her as she grasped the hilt, open electricity playing over it. She was forced to drop the thing quickly, grimacing. Yeah, whoever was behind these guys had a real thing about stopping intruders from using their own people’s weapons against them. Smart. Annoying, but smart.


    The gas-figure flowed around and in front of her, turning solid just as he grabbed her arms to yank them out of the way. Holding her wrists tightly, the exceedingly pale red-haired man sneered at her. “I know you,” he hissed. “You’re the human-loving vampire. You’ve got no–”


    She slammed her forehead into his face. As the man recoiled and reflexively turned to smoke once more, Asenath’s foot found the sword from earlier, kicking it up into her hand. She grabbed it, thrusting the weapon forward and through the smoke-figure, ending all the way up to her wrists in the man-shaped cloud.


    He started to laugh, then saw the vampire girl’s face. She was smiling at him, baring her teeth just as the sword’s safety measure kicked in. Electricity shot out over the hilt of the sword. Senny jerked and spasmed a bit as the shock flooded into her hands. But that same electricity also went through the smoke-figure, which was enough to shock him back into his physical form. A physical form that happened to have the sword and Asenath’s still-twitching hands buried right in the middle of it.


    Releasing the sword with a cry, she let the dead man collapse to the ground while seeking the next threat. Twister had taken a cue from her earlier opponent, turning into an enormous rhino while dealing with the werespider, who kept trying to poison her, spitting acid while backing up.


    But they still had trouble. Only about half of the original guards were down, and Senny could hear a handful of trucks tearing down the street toward them. The reinforcements.


    “It’s blown, it’s blown!” she called to the other girl, taking the time to grab the table and throw it at the remaining men before pivoting to book it back out through the same hole that they had come in.


    Twister was right on her heels, shifting form into a horse in time for Senny to grab on and haul herself up in one smooth motion. Then they were tearing across the parking lot, shots from the surprised guards coming entirely too close for comfort. Distantly as they crossed the street, Senny heard the trucks screeching around the last corner before the men who were already there shouted instructions.


    They kept running. Senny clung to Twister’s neck as the horse raced through alleys and along side-streets before abruptly shapeshifting once more. Now, instead of riding a horse, Senny was clutching onto an enormous gorilla as it leapt at the nearest building, climbing rapidly.


    They reached the roof, and Asenath hopped off, brushing her hands off as she exhaled.


    “Well,” Seth announced as he emerged from the nearby access door into the building, “you cut that one pretty close. We barely had time to get into the basement and deal with the punks down there.”


    Ignoring his complaint, Senny asked, “You got it, though?”


    “We got it!” Namythiet confirmed triumphantly. She was hovering above Clubber, as the green saber-tooth trotted forward happily with a leather bag dangling from his mouth.


    Seth winked, gesturing in agreement. “Course we got it. Thanks for keeping all the boys upstairs busy. Could’ve been messy if they figured out someone was going after the real good stuff in the cellar.” Nodding with his chin then, he added, “Why do you suppose Sinclaire needs it? And who the hell is she working with on this?”


    Reaching down to take the bag from Clubber before giving him an affectionate rub, Senny straightened with a shake of her head. “I don’t know,” she replied simply while shaking the contents out into her palm. For a moment, she just stared at the small, off-white object in her hand. “But I’ll tell you one thing,” the girl murmured thoughtfully, “if this bit of dragon bone is just the first ingredient for whatever her plan is…


    “It’s gonna be a doozy.”