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Carpe Noctem Book Three
Never the Twain Chapter Fifteen
by Lianne Burwell
May 2002
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Vic was using every ounce of the tracking skills that had been 
drilled into him by Moira and her clan, often backed up with 
blows and snarls about how worthless he was for not figuring them 
out on his own like a *true* Gangrel, to track their quarry 
through the endless maze of tunnels. They were far more extensive 
than they should have been, but all looked to be about the same 
age, and he wondered just who the hell had built them and why. 
They certainly hadn't been dug by the city.

The problem was, there wasn't a real trail to follow. The scents 
were everywhere, and when he tried to focus on just Jackie, he 
found that her trail was all over the place, crossing over itself 
time and again. It was like she was going around in circles, or 
something. It was frustrating. Unfortunately, it was what he was 
stuck with, so he did his best.

Bit by bit, the trail was getting fresher, though, even though he 
still had no idea if they were getting any closer. But he was 
sure that sooner or later, they would find Jackie. He just hoped 
that she would still be in one piece when they did.

The roar, bouncing off the tunnels walls until it was unbearable, 
caught them off-guard, and he stumbled to a halt, his hands 
pressed to his ears. Behind him, he dimly heard Mac yelling, 
"What the hell is that?" but he didn't have any answers for his 
partner. Whatever it was, it was large, it was angry, and he had 
a sinking feeling that it was what they were looking for. 
Suddenly, a gun and a dagger didn't seem like enough.

Once the echoes had died away, they could hear the sounds of 
fighting, and this time, they could tell that it was coming from 
in front of them. Abandoning tracking techniques and caution, 
they ran.

>>>~~~<<<

If it wasn't for the broken ankle, Jackie would have been running 
as fast as she could. While she was more than happy that the 
beast's attention had been diverted from her, she really didn't 
want to be this close to the fight between it and... Well, she 
wasn't exactly sure what it was fighting. Everything was a blur 
from when she hit the wall.

Bit by bit, her vision did start to clear, though. But when she 
saw what was going on, she wasn't so sure that was a good thing. 
The creature she'd known as Sanji was even bigger now. Its claws 
looked like they were easily a foot long, and razor sharp. The 
fur covering it was an inky black that almost made him vanish in 
the dark tunnel. The eyes were red. And they burned. Jackie 
whimpered, and pressed a little tighter against the wall.

And as for what it was fighting...

It was LiAnn. At least she assumed it was LiAnn. It looked like 
LiAnn, although she'd never thought of the prim Asian woman as 
being the type to go into battle nearly naked, armed only with 
teeth and claws. Of course, she'd never thought of LiAnn as the 
type to go to bed with a woman, let alone fuck her raw. And when 
did LiAnn grow claws anyway?

Jackie's jaw dropped at the ferocity of the battle in front of 
her, wondering just what the hell had happened to LiAnn in China. 
She definitely wasn't the woman she'd been before. In a fight, 
she'd used guns, or occasionally martial arts. Elegant. Simple. 
Quick. This fight was anything but.

Jackie ducked, but not fast enough to avoid having blood splash 
across her cheek. When she looked up again, the battle was still 
raging, but Sanji was missing a chunk of its upper... arm, for 
lack of a better term. But it wasn't the only one bleeding. A set 
of parallel gashes -- claw marks, she noted in a strange calm -- 
cut deep into LiAnn's belly. A human would have been curled up on 
the ground, trying to hold their guts in. Hell, a *vampire* would 
have been doing the same. LiAnn, on the other hand, didn't even 
seem to notice. Instead, she seemed intent on doing even more 
damage to the beast, and from what little Jackie could see, she 
was succeeding.

But the beast wasn't giving up either. It fought with a 
viciousness that would have been impressive if it wasn't so 
terrifying.

>>>~~~<<<

They took three wrong turns before finally finding the right 
trail, and by that point Mac was cursing under his breath. It was 
a good thing that he didn't have to sweat anymore, since 
otherwise he would be swimming in it. It was hot in the tunnels, 
and it stinked. And he didn't even want to *think* about the 
other things running around with them. After all, he prided 
himself on being trendy and urbane, and those terms did not go 
with his current location.

On the other hand, he'd be damned if he was going to let *any* of 
his partners get killed if he could stop it. Sure, Jackie was 
annoying as hell, and he still owed her for the shot in the 
alley, back when he'd run into her the first time after she'd 
joined the Agency. Of course, he hadn't known about that: as far 
as he'd been concerned, she was a con who was supposed to still 
be in jail. He'd hurt like hell the next day, and the bruises had 
taken nearly two weeks to go away. Of course, now he knew that 
she'd been Kindred at the time -- the reason she'd been carefully 
keeping to shadows on a cloudy day -- which explained why she'd 
been able to do so much damage. The only thing that still 
confused him was the fact that she'd even been awake at all, no 
matter how close to sunset it had been.

Distracted, he nearly plowed into Vic's back when the other man 
stopped unexpectedly. He moved to the side to see what had 
stopped the man. A rock fall, and the sound of fighting was 
coming from the other side, punctuated by the occasional, and 
very non-human, roar.

"Start digging," Vic said, already grabbing a chunk of broken 
concrete. Mac matched him, stone for stone. Side by side, they 
dug as fast as they could, driven by desperation.

>>>~~~<<<

LiAnn laughed loudly as she struck another blow, and the Raksha 
lost another chunk of flesh. That wouldn't slow it down, 
unfortunately. Demon kind were notoriously had to kill, even more 
so that the Kuei-jin. She would need to do a lot more damage 
before she even slowed it down. And it didn't help that she was 
taking it on with her bare hands. Of course, she wouldn't have it 
any other way. There was something so... satisfying about sinking 
teeth or claws into flesh and rending it apart. Blood dripping, 
hot and satisfying.

Oh yes, bloody mayhem was something that would take many years 
for her to experience, in all its possible forms.

Jackie was still in one piece, she was pleased to see. She and 
the blonde had never gotten along well, before, but she knew now 
that it was because of envy. Jackie thoroughly enjoyed her life -
- or maybe that was her unlife. LiAnn had always been too 
concerned about protecting herself from being hurt to really 
allow herself to enjoy anything, even her lovers. One of the many 
things she'd been working at changing.

But it was obvious that while the pretty blonde was still moving, 
she wasn't completely unhurt. Her foot was bent at an awkward 
angle, which meant she wasn't getting out of there under her own 
power, and while she didn't normally care what happened to her 
lovers after she was done with them -- the Raksha killing them 
was more an annoyance than anything else -- she really did want 
Jackie to survive this.

Unfortunately, the Raksha seemed to pick up on that, and it 
actually split its attention, trying to simultaneously hold her 
off while going after Jackie. LiAnn blocked the attempt, removing 
another chunk of flesh from the creature, with a laugh. If it was 
stupid enough to give her openings, she was going to take them. 
She liked being underestimated. It gave her an edge. The Raksha 
also didn't expect the chunk of concrete that Jackie grabbed and 
threw with speed and strength to strike it in the back of his 
head, giving LiAnn the perfect shot.

She went for the eyes, but this time the Raksha got in a lucky 
shot, and she hit the tunnel wall hard enough to disorient her 
for a moment. The demon bellowed its victory -- a little 
premature in her opinion -- and attacked, but she rolled out of 
its way, sweeping up with nails that had extended into claws, 
aiming for the relatively vulnerable groin area. Its bellow of 
pain almost drowned out the sound of rock against rock, but not 
quite.

Turning her head slightly as she leapt out of the way, she saw a 
portion of the cave-in fall away. It looked like the boys had 
arrived.

>>>~~~<<<

When Vic pulled away one last stone, the rest came tumbling down, 
like an arch with the keystone removed. The space on the other 
side wasn't any better lit than the section that they were in, 
but there was some faint light coming from above, which combined 
with Kindred sight to make the scene clear to him. Jackie was at 
the other end of the tight space, her back pressed against a 
wall. In between was LiAnn, and something that looked like every 
nightmare he'd ever had, all wrapped up in one.

The sound of falling stones seemed to distract the creature. It 
turned towards them, and Vic's heart jumped into his throat. The 
creature's eyes were glowing with fire, and even though the form 
was nothing like the one he'd worn before, he recognized those 
eyes from the film of the alley the night that the boy was 
killed. This was their killer, beyond a doubt.

The only question was, now what did they do?

LiAnn seemed to have an idea, though, and she took advantage it 
to leap on the creature's back, her long fingernails -- claws? -- 
reaching for its eyes. It bellowed, and threw itself backwards at 
a wall, crushing LiAnn between itself and the concrete.  She 
dropped.

Reacting on instinct, Vic emptied his gun into the creature, and 
Mac did the same from beside him. The sound of gunfire was 
obscenely loud in the small space.

No effect. The creature just shrugged off the bullets and 
laughed, an eerie sound that made every hair on Vic's body stand 
on end.

But it didn't attack again. Maybe it didn't like the four on one 
odds. Jackie was down and out, but she was still fighting. The 
tunnel floor was littered with chunks of concrete and other, less 
identifiable, material, and she was throwing them with everything 
she had while she worked at dragging herself around the edges of 
the space, heading for the gap in the cave-in. And LiAnn... Well, 
after the slam, she should have been severely injured, if not 
dead, but she was already shaking her head and pushing to her 
feet.

"This isn't over," the creature hissed, raising its arms, 
chanting softly in a language Vic didn't recognize.

The tunnel was dark, although not completely to Kindred eyes, but 
suddenly the darkness took on a shape, a form. It collected in 
the corners, then pressed forward, moving towards the creature, 
pooling in its hands. Vic swallowed hard.

"Like hell it is," LiAnn snarled, and leapt onto the creature's 
back, clawing at its eyes and throat, but from what Vic could 
see, she wasn't getting far. And he knew she was right. Either it 
ended there, or there was going to be more deaths in his city. 
They couldn't afford to let the whatever the hell it was get 
away.

Bullets obviously weren't going to do any good, so he tossed his 
gun away and switched his dagger to his other hand. The blade was 
nearly a foot long and razor sharp, a left-over from the days 
just after he got out of jail and was still waiting for his old 
cop brothers to come after him. Or maybe he was still deciding 
whether or not he was going to go after them. Whatever the 
situation, knives were quieter than guns, and having a knife 
could be passed off as a cooking utensil. In fact, that was 
exactly what he used it as these days, if he used it at all. 
However, after his introduction to the things that go bump in the 
night, he'd had the blade coated in a thin layer of silver, just 
in case.

He reached down, deep inside of himself, looking for the beast 
that no longer scared him the way it had when he'd first changed. 
Now he knew that he could control it, use it.

Immediately, everything sharpened, brightened. His vision shifted 
slightly, and he could see heat, although it was nothing like the 
infrared goggles that were available. If pressed, he wouldn't be 
able to describe just how it was that he saw it. He just did. And 
the creature... it flared brighter than anything else in the 
area.

He could also feel bones stretching, elongating, and his fangs 
dropped, filling his mouth, even though he had no intention of 
biting the creature. He had the feeling that its blood would 
probably be toxic as far as he was concerned. Then he crouched 
down, coiling himself up to jump.

The darkness was swirling faster now, and there were flashes of 
light from it, like a sick sort of lightening. His stomach turned 
every time he caught a glimpse of it out of the corner of his 
eyes, and he didn't want to know what it was doing. Only problem, 
how to stop it. With any luck, killing this thing that he assumed 
was Sanji would stop what was happening. Of course, killing it 
was the tricky part.

With the creature distracted by LiAnn, Vic waited for just the 
right moment.

Then jumped.

>>>~~~<<<

Jackie couldn't do much for the fight, but the tunnel floor was 
littered with chunks of broken concrete, some of it with pretty 
sharp edges. Every time she saw an opening, she grabbed one, 
threw it at Sanji with all her strength, then pulled herself 
towards the next chunk, gradually working her way towards the gap 
in the rubble that Vic and Mac had made. She didn't have a clue 
how they had found her, but she was ready to cry with relief. She 
really needed to do something nice for those two.

Of course, that assumed that they survived this whole business, 
and right then, that wasn't a given.

Then Sanji started chanting under his breath, and the shadows 
suddenly came alive. One piece of shadow actually touched her, 
and she jerked away with a small cry. For a moment, her blood ran 
first cold, then hotter than it ever had, even back when she'd 
been alive. She also had a brief glimpse of a city that was more 
wreck than anything else, under an artificial sky, and it 
terrified her beyond reason.

They needed to get out of there, and *fast*. But after her close 
encounter with the shadow, she'd gone completely numb. She 
couldn't move a muscle.

That was when Vic dropped his gun and jumped at Sanji, a wicked 
looking dagger in his hand. Both he and LiAnn were carving away 
at the beast, and yet it was still chanting, still fighting. They 
weren't going to make it, she suddenly realized.

>>>~~~<<<

Mac was fighting the urge to just turn around and run. He prided 
himself on having guts, and the street smarts to deal with just 
about anything, but this Sanji thing was like nothing he'd ever 
dealt with, and hoped he would never deal with again. Seeing it 
on the security camera was bad enough. The image that he'd 
sketched to prove that he'd had the vision he'd said he'd had was 
even worse. This was... He shivered, and fought to keep from 
whimpering. For a moment, he felt like a complete coward.

That ended the moment that Vic went after the oversized furball 
with just a dagger in his hand. He was still terrified, but now 
it was for a completely different reason. He'd already lost two 
partners -- Michael and, it seemed, LiAnn -- and he'd be damned 
if he was going to loose another. Either of them.

He still had his gun, but it had been pretty damned useless so 
far. He was no slouch at target shooting, and at this range with 
a target this large, there was no way in hell that either one of 
them had missed the ravening beast. They'd emptied two clips, and 
the damned thing had just shrugged off the slugs. And from the 
look of it, LiAnn's claws -- what the hell had she become? -- and 
Vic's oversized filleting knife didn't seem to be doing much 
better. Despite the fact that the ground was now splattered with 
blood and chunks of monster, it was still going.

And now the shadows were getting into the act. One of them 
brushed past Jackie, and she screamed, piercingly loud, before 
she collapsed. He wasn't sure what the moving darkness had done 
to her, and he knew that he really didn't want to find out first 
hand. Unfortunately, he probably would -- they all would -- 
unless they managed to stop whatever the furball was doing.

But if what LiAnn and Vic were doing wasn't doing any good, what 
could he do?

Suddenly realizing that he was still hovering in the space in the 
cave-in that they'd cleared out, while Vic was on the other side, 
along with Jackie and LiAnn, he started to push through. If they 
were going to die, then damnit, the were going to die together. 
That was when the bag over his shoulder caught on a chunk of 
concrete. He'd forgotten that he was carrying it. Then he 
remembered just *what* he was carrying.

Vic's duffle bag. The one with the explosives in it. Knowing Vic, 
he hadn't used all of them to get the manhole cover open either.

It would have been too risky to use explosives on the caved-in 
tunnel, and it was probably too risky to use them now. On the 
other hand, if they didn't, they would all be dead, and Sanji 
would get away, continue killing. He knew that as certainly as he 
knew his own name. The pendant burning against his chest was 
telling him this.

Mac dropped the bag on the ground and pulled it open. Lots of 
silly putty and five more detonators, along with spare clips for 
their guns, a cell phone, probably fully charged, a GPS locator, 
and even a couple of hand grenades, of all things. Vic Mansfield, 
over-grown boy scout. Be prepared.

He grabbed a wedge of putty large enough to blow up a minivan, 
considered the creature that had just thrown Vic into a wall, then 
doubled it. He set a detonator to ten seconds -- the smallest 
amount of time he thought was workable --jammed it into the putty, 
then jumped.

The wad of explosives went down the furball's throat. It actually 
swallowed, which was good, since that meant it couldn't spit it 
out again. Then Mac went flying. "Run!" he yelled, then went for 
Jackie. His first instinct was to grab Vic, but Jackie couldn't 
walk, and Vic... Vic could take care of himself, he promised 
himself.

Jackie seemed almost fragile in his arms as he dove through the 
gap in the rubble, and around the nearest corner. The explosion 
was deafening in the confined area, and he covered her, protecting 
her from flying debris and the flames that made him wonder for a 
moment if they were going to survive. It was just like the 
warehouse, all over again. Him, Vic, and LiAnn all running for 
their lives, knowing that they weren't going to make it, certain 
that this was it, they were going to die. Maybe that death had 
just been delayed a little.

Then the roar faded. The debris was still raining down on them, 
and Jackie was clinging to him hard, shaking like she was going to 
fall apart. And if he was being honest, Mac was shaking just as 
hard.

Finally, the rain of concrete and dust died down to nothing, and 
Mac lifted his head and looked around.

The first thing he saw was Vic, pushing himself to his knees. Dust 
had turned him to a uniform grey, other than the few slow trickles 
blood coming from cuts and scrapes, none of them too serious. He 
was the best thing that Mac could ever remember seeing in his 
life.

"Are you okay?" he asked, but he couldn't even hear his own voice 
over the ringing in his ears.

Vic winced, and shook his head, sending a spray of dust all over 
the place. "Are you all right?" he yelled. Mac could barely hear 
him.

Instead of yelling back and feeling like an idiot, he settled for 
just nodding, then turning his attention to Jackie.

The blonde still had a death grip on his shirt, but other than 
that, she wasn't moving. Tears were running down her face, and he 
wrapped his arms around her, rocking her back and forth gently. 
"It's okay, everything's okay, you're safe now," he whispered, 
even though she probably couldn't hear him.

Vic got to his feet and moved to the opening in the rubble. The 
ringing in Mac's ears was already starting to fade, letting him 
hear the gentle plink of bits of debris still falling to the 
ground. Mac stood up and followed Vic, Jackie still clinging to 
him and hopping along on one leg, her broken foot held up off the 
ground and most of her weight resting on him.

The hole they'd cleared was even larger now, and not too stable 
looking either. The air on the other side was full of dust, making 
it impossible to see anything. Mac wanted to call LiAnn's name, 
but he didn't dare. The explosion had to have killed the whatever-
the-hell-it-was -- he still shied away from calling it a demon -- 
but part of him still wasn't willing to take the chance.

Something was moving in the haze. Mac's spirits lifted for a 
moment. Then he realized that it was too large.

"Shit! What does it take to kill this thing!"

"More than you've got, little boy." The voice boomed through the 
space, but it seemed to Mac that the critter wasn't moving as fast 
as before. He'd hurt it, maybe even badly, but it had taken most 
of the explosives. They just didn't have anything left to throw at 
the thing.

"Move!" Vic shouted, pushing him out of the way of the charging 
beast. Then something dropped from the ceiling -- or was that 
*out* of the ceiling? -- and landed on the creature's back. The 
figure was barely recognizable as LiAnn, and Mac wondered just 
what the hell had happened to her in China. What was she?

While they watched in shock, she wrapped her arm around the 
creature's neck and...

Twisted.

The head separated from the shoulders with a moist, sickening 
sound that made Mac ill. A moment later, the body hit the ground 
with a thump so massive that another cloud of dust and debris was 
raised. LiAnn stood there, over the body, the head raised high, 
and made a high ululating sound that reminded Mac of the Xena 
television show. It raised the hair on the back of his neck, and 
Jackie winced against him.

"LiAnn..." Mac stopped, not quite sure what he was going to say.

LiAnn turned to them, and smiled. "Hello, Mac."

"Welcome home?" he said hesitantly, still keeping one eye on the 
body. It looked dead, but right then, he didn't trust appearances.

LiAnn's smile turned feral, and for a moment her eyes glowed. 
"This isn't home, Mac. It never was."

That brought his attention fully to her"You're leaving, aren't 
you?" He swallowed hard. He'd expected it, but still... it hurt.

Her expression gentled. "I've found the place I belong, Mac, just 
like you. I came back for one thing, and I have it now." She held 
up the head, blood and gore dripping from the neck, and Mac 
flinched. "What you are and what I am, there's no common ground 
anymore. But I'll remember you fondly. All of you."

"Will we ever see you again?" Surprisingly enough, the unhappy 
question had come from Jackie. One night of... well, one night 
seemed to have managed to erase all the hostility that had been 
between the two women since Jackie's recruitment.

"Not if you're lucky. Take my advice. Stay away from Asia. There's 
nothing for you there except true death."

With that, LiAnn stepped backwards slowly until she reached the 
wall. But she didn't stop there, and a moment later, she was gone 
from sight, passing through the concrete as if it weren't there.

"Okay, that was neat," Jackie said. She shifted her weight, then 
cried out in pain. "Um, guys, can we get out of here? I could use 
a doctor and a shower, not necessarily in that order. I swear, if 
I never see a sewer again, it'll be too soon."

Mac glanced over at Vic. Vic was staring at the wall with a 
wistful expression. "Vic?"

Vic blinked, then gave a shake. "Uh, yeah. Right. We should head 
to the Agency, file a report."

"It's over?"

Vic walked over to the headless form lying on the ground and 
nudged it with his foot. It didn't move, and he was barely able to 
shift it at all. "It's over," he said firmly. "All that's left is 
the clean-up, I think."

Clean-up. The Director would arrange for the body to be disposed 
of -- assuming that she ever showed up again -- by people who 
could be trusted with this. It would disappear, much the way 
McKenzie's body had probably already disappeared. The Agency was 
very good at making things they didn't want known about go away. 
And then... And then this would all officially never have 
happened.

Mac carefully pushed those thoughts aside and concentrated on 
helping Jackie hop over the debris, while Vic went ahead, figuring 
out the best way out.

It was over.

END CHAPTER FIFTEEN