~~Beatrice~~
"It this... everyone?"
Sighing, Jack nodded, crouched low on the roof of Robina's. "Clara's not here yet, but yeah this is everyone. If any of the hunters escape into a nightmare, Azamel will send Fiona to help us on that end. You know, assuming she can find us."
Beatrice started counting. Six vampires, one werewolf, and one monster; potentially two monsters, if they had to fight in the nightmare. That was not nearly as many people as Triss was hoping for. And, for some reason, a human was there, too.
"The fuck? Isn't this Azamel's problem? Why isn't she coming?"
The kid shrugged as he stared over the edge of the building, and to the small, distant bridge beneath them. No movement. "Azamel's old as dirt. So unless the fight comes to her, and in the nightmare, she can't do much. Mark is her bodyguard, more or less. And Fiona's just a young girl."
"You're just a young vampire."
Jack chuckled quietly, smiling. It sounded forced. "Damien said it best. Fiona can't survive a bullet, but her Horror can. Better if we don't throw her life away if we don't have to, right? And Athalia's here because... well, obvious reasons."
Every witch looked at Athalia, and frowned, a quartet of annoyance with the woman. They all knew who she was, and that this was partly her fault.
"I don't give a fuck if you all hate me," she said. "It's my daughter."
Growling, Triss slowly crouched down next to Jack. The cool night air and the clouds above held little noise, and Triss did her best to listen for any potential danger. All she could hear was the distant sound of traffic, and Athalia's breathing.
"What about Jessy?" she said. "Figured she'd help, and maybe her boy toy Eric too."
"Can't reach them. I tried to get Natasha too, but she's MIA."
If Natasha was missing, along with Jessy and Eric, there was a decent chance they were off doing something werewolfy. Natasha and Jessy wouldn't just shut off their phones; disable the ring and buzz, sure, but not turn off. They were indisposed somehow, unreachable, probably by either doing something super sneaky, or being in the Shadow realm. Three werewolves and one very curious little vampire meant research opportunities, Triss figured.
"Ok, I can wrap my mind around that," she said, "but who the fuck is this guy?" Some kine, a black dude with short curly hair, was staring at her and her teeth like he'd never seen a Nosferatu before. Well, he wasn't freaking out and screaming or anything, so he must have seen similar at some point.
"A hunter," Jack said.
"I'm sorry, I think I misheard you. Say that again?"
Rolling his eyes, Jack motioned for them to get low. Apparently they'd all started standing up as the conversation took a definite turn toward argument. Damien and Triss were keeping everyone wrapped in the Cloak of Night, but it still paid to be cautious.
"Um, hey, yeah, I'm Harcourt. I came to see the vampires here in Dolareido, because honestly, we need help getting rid of Angela and Jeremiah. I want my friends to survive, and you know, Angela and Jeremiah are going to get them all killed. It's pretty crazy. I was hoping—"
Athalia backhanded the still-standing man in the stomach, sending him down onto his knees, gasping. "Shut up."
Beatrice stared at the man, and flexed her fingers tight, until the joints hurt. "This is a hunter? One of the fuckers working for the psychopaths?"
"He is," Jack said. "I tested his mind myself. He's legit. Wants to help, and knows where Elen's set up the portal tonight. The issue now, is we need to get it open."
Oh sweet mother of fucking god, they were all going to die.
"Ok," she said, "so, setting aside the insanity that our entire plan relies on the word — even checked — of a hunter, why can't this fucker just walk up to the portal and open it?"
"Few reasons," Harcourt said. "Only Elen can open the portal, and Elen has ways to tell if someone's mind has been tampered with. I dunno if she'd open it for me. And we don't just come and go randomly anyway. We leave, set up meetings and rendezvous by phone later, and—"
Beatrice threw up her hands. "Then how about, we sit on this fucker, and make him arrange a rendezvous with his buddies? Instead of jumping into the mouth of Hell, we'd have time to set up a proper ambush. You could easily turn him into a puppet, and—"
Jack shook his head, and started rubbing his buzzed hair as he stared down at the building roof. "I thought about that. There's nothing I could make this guy say or do, that would trick the hunters into making the opening he's provided for us tonight. I could use him to capture a few more hunters maybe once, and then the jig would be up. It's not like Jeremiah and Angela would come to rescue this guy, and you know it."
"I... yeah, you're right. Fuck me, we have to do this now, don't we? Ugh. Ugh!" This was not a good way to do this, and Jack definitely noticed the similarity with this and his previous attacks on the hunters: done last minute and without planning. But he was right that, if they wanted to kill Jeremiah and Angela, this was probably their best chance.
And she wanted to kill them. Fuck, it was an itch inside her that she couldn't get rid of, an itch that turned into a boiling heat that scalded her every time she thought about it. She had to get it out, get it to stop burning her insides, and the only way to do that would be over their dead bodies.
"Hey, don't forget your promise!" Harcourt said, loud enough that Athalia, again, hit him, this time with a smack to the back of his head. She was no human, and a hard slap was enough to send the man to the roof on his stomach. Any harder and she'd have injured him.
"Promise?" Aaron said.
Groaning, Jack nodded, but kept his eyes on the distant bridge that showed no signs of movement or life. "Yeah, I promised him we'd spare any hunters that didn't get in our way."
