* * * *
Nigel was on site of the second attack. By this time the site was a mess. The local police were idiots or worse. The fire fighters could be forgiven for their part, but not the police. The large pool meant someone was hurt, not Tammy. The spell was powerful; the heat turned the car to slag and the occupants to bone. He could envision what had happened: seeing the car round the corner and starting the drive by, where the car swerved left tire tracks. He walked over to where the others had been hiding. The tracks there were trampled to nothing by the police. The only reason the blood remained was due to the heat from the car burning it onto the ground.
Why didn’t Tammy just leave? The hole in the wall where they are was mostly a waste of time. They couldn’t get any information except for that her group started the fight when the waitress was punched. This action was contrary to Tammy’s file; it was a cold calculating murder, causing excessive collateral damage. The only excessive damage caused was the melting of the car. That was after the possible fatal wound her companion had received. That’s when the light went off in his head.
“I need that file on Tammy Stone NOW,” he demanded to no one and everyone.
Timothy was the first to approach him with her file already open in his tablet computer. It only took a minute to find what he needed. He had been so caught up in her psych profile that he forgot to read between the lines. She had several children, but only one thought to be in the country, the only child produced for her last marriage to a guy named Dorian Stone; she kept the name. It was a female child named Allyson. Tammy didn’t become number one on the vampire most wanted list until six years after Dorian was fed to a vampire.
“Crap,” escaped Nigel’s lips.
“Do you need something?” Timothy asked quickly.
“Sorry, no, I’m just learning something new about our criminal.”
Timothy wasn’t convinced but knew better than to question him. The wolf in him was awakened again. The weak tyrant was cast down that night. Now the team no longer feared his word, they feared his actions. The first person to openly question him had his head slammed into a wall, spent several hours in surgery, and a week in the hospital recovering from the force of a wall stud shattering his shoulder.
Nigel walked into a field near the abandoned building the group traveling with Tammy had used as cover from the bullets. They’d left through the field, but with all the damage done to the tracks Nigel couldn’t be sure where they’d left from. He decided to continue away from the fight in a straight line. They wouldn’t be able to move very fast with a person wounded that bad. Another thing nagging him was the lack of a clear blood trail. He should have been seeing blood everywhere, but there was only the initial pool at the melted car. Tammy’s magic couldn’t fix that kind of injury, yet there were no additional bodies.
He walked too far from the others, following the tracks. He was concentrating on the tracks and failed to notice the five men in the shadows until they had surrounded him. He didn’t have his gun so he stood there in his suit waiting for them to close. They assumed he was a lost business man. Their ringleader was a big guy; he had six inches, eighty pounds and twenty years on Nigel; and had no idea that he never stood a chance as he approach with his knife in hand.
“Give me your money, car keys, and all your jewelry!” the big guy demanded.
Nigel’s quick glance revealed two guys behind him three paces out of reach, only one with a weapon, a knife. The guy was holding it with a death grip. The kids couldn’t be more than fifteen. The other two were flanking the big guy, slightly behind him.
The ringleader took a step towards Nigel as he yelled, “I said give me your money, car keys, and all your jewelry!”
“You scared him stiff, Bull,” the guy to his right said.
“Shut up!” Bull said as he turned to the guy behind him.
Nigel moved forward and punched Bull in the throat, crushing his wind pipe. Next he grabbed the knife from Bull’s hand and stabbed him through the heart. He was now in striking distance of the flankers. He moved to attack the left flanker because he was grabbing for a gun. Nigel drew his blade across the inside of his arm, nearly cutting to the bone, and the gun was never leveled on him. Another slash and he lay dying on the ground, bleeding from his carotid artery.
The right flanker managed to get his pistol out. Nigel dodged towards the two guys behind him. The scared kid looked like he was going to wet himself, no treat. The other guy was the opposite. Nigel had just enough time to duck out of the line of sight. His shot barely missed him. Now he was between the two gunmen. Nigel advanced inside the effective range of the guy that shot at him. He grabbed the gun wrist and twisted it in his armpit. A sharp downward thrust with his left elbow popped the gunmen’s elbow out, causing him to drop the gun and yell out in pain. His pain was ended by a palm strike to his nose; the gunman was dead before his body knew what happened. Not wasting a second, Nigel turned towards the flanker as he heard the shot fired. It was a minor hit to his upper left arm; it hurt but he could still fight. Three other shots were fired wildly, giving Nigel a chance to throw his knife into the flanker’s chest, sinking into his heart. Nigel grabbed the gun at his feet and shot the running kid in the back twice before his team arrived.
The Battle for Pittsburgh
Blaise couldn’t offer much in the way of people: eight to be exact, but he gave a wealth of equipment and information. Max had been hoping for more people to help reduce the five to one odds we were facing. He knew that by picking small targets we could reduce their numbers, but that would only work on one or two targets before they adapted to our tactics. He was going to lead twenty people into a situation where he wasn’t going to be able to get everyone out alive. This knowledge weighted on him heavily. The information Blaise had was good but not complete. He needed more; he needed to talk with Taneisa, needed the intelligence she had to formulate a plan that could succeed. It turned out that it wasn’t that hard to convince her to help us. She had two conditions: keep the fighting off the streets as much as possible, and two: she wouldn’t be part of the fighting. She just simply couldn’t kill another person, no matter what they had done to her.
All of Blaise’s men respected Taneisa so it was no surprise when the offer was made for her to stay on the compound. When she politely refused, we did the only logical thing, we posted guards on her house around the clock. Tammy made a charm to protect her and Allyson placed some protection wards on the house. No one wanted anything to happen to her. To most of Blaise’s crew she was a guiding light of morality.
Due to the pending encounter, my magic training was reduced to two spells: night vision and shielding. It was more difficult to actually cast a spell than I originally thought. It was more than just saying the words and poof the spell is cast. You had to first understand what you wanted, then you could form the spell with the words. Allyson drilled me over and over again on casting the night vision spell. I just couldn’t cast it with the same effect as her. The image that formed in my mind’s eye as I formed the spell was a cat, so when the spell was cast I ended up with cat eyes. Ultimately they wanted function over form so we moved on to the second spell, shielding, which went easier because I already had an idea of how the spell worked. The last challenge came in the physical exhaustion from casting a spell. I was only able to cast a few times before I was too tired to continue without a rest.
On one of my breaks from my task master Allyson I came across Blaise and Max poring over intelligence in front of them. They couldn’t seem to find the pattern to it. As I watched them for a few minutes I could see them hitting that mental wall. Max swore once in frustration, which was completely uncharacteristic of him. Looking at them, I remembered what my tutor from college used to say: when you get stuck on a problem, approach it from a different angle. So I risked bodily harm by disturbing them while they poured over the information.
“Guys, could you expla
in this to me?” I said as I waved my hands over their table.
“We don’t have time to give you lessons today,” Max said sharply
“Max, we need a break; explain to him what we are trying to ‘see,’” Blaise said, distracting Max from my interruption.
“You asked for it kid, now you’re stuck with us for the next few hours,” Max said with an evil grin.
Max was true to his word. They kept me there for hours as he first explained what he was doing. Then he started going over all the information they had on their activities for the past three months. It was a lot to go through. It wasn’t until we got through all the information that Max and Blaise saw what they were looking for. I swear I saw a light bulb over their heads when they said, “Do you see that?” I was still clueless but they had found what they needed and started ignoring me again. I was never so glad to be invisible.