Their first call out was to tell the world the Atharim weren't going anywhere. Now they needed to ride of the inside issues - the ones like the Americans and the contractors. Those who weren't pure and brought in on the same level as they were. They all had to go with any traitor among them. And right now there were two holed up in one place. No better situation than to take them both out at the same time. Two against two was good odds.
Stephan Weiss and Henrik Mantere had found the safe Mr. John White ran. It was unfortunately one of the better safe houses and it would be a shame to loose it and the premiere technology but he was not Atharim - he needed to go. And the American, boy did they hate Americans.
Their plan of action was to plant explosives, and use it as a back up. The place looked like a tin can with it's exterior built out of shells. They didn't know the layout. They knew nothing more than it was a safe house.
Stephan went around the back side from a few blocks away so they wouldn't see him coming around. And Henrik got the front. He hated the front, but he'd do the job. They were to plant the remote detonated explosives all around the building. What Henrik hadn't counted on was dogs..... fucking dogs.
The dogs started barking drew attention to the front...
[[ spoke with jacinda she's using hood's safe house while the the Atharim are regrouping. Yoshi might join ya'll but dunno I sent him a message ]]
The bottle of beer was cold in her hand as she took a swig. It was good, if a bit too hoppy for her taste. IPA's were never her thing- to say nothing of microbrews. Seemed to her that everyone competed to see how dark or strong or sharp they could make their beer. That or put in all kinds of weird ingredients to make their's unique. Orange peel had become pretty standard ever the years, along with other fruit, but people had gotten far too "creative". Tobacco-leaf was a serious mistake.
Thankfully, White- a fake name, she knew- was not a pretentious douche so he kept the standards around. Simple. Comfortable. She frowned at the slight bitterness. Well, almost.
The place was simple and well kept, with supplies and equipment organized and put away. It was what safe houses were supposed to look like. She'd spent days at a time in various ones and had seen good and bad. Ricky's, down in Mexico City, had been a nice one. She wondered what he was up to. He had seemed in line to adopt that girl. Which was good, she supposed. Regan had taken her in- well more than that, really. She hadn't really been a girl and their relationship was as much wife as daughter. But Regan had been a hard man, ruthless and decisive. He had been her rock through her parent's death and was the foundation of her career. Ricky was a bit too....not soft, exactly. Too human, too compassionate. Shades of Seth and Rune. This was war. So she wished him luck even as she wondered if the girl would lead him out of the trenches and into a house with picket fences.
White was another matter. He exuded some of the same ruthlessness, which she rather liked. Not that she put anything out there. There was far too much going on. The Atharim were imploding, now that the Regus and Barovsky were dead. She wasn't sure where the other Archangels were, exactly. Well, some, she knew, but not what they were up to. And the rank and file Atharim had been left to fend for themselves. It left ashes in her mouth, in some ways. Being part of a tightly disciplined organization was not her speed, so its not like she missed that part. But the archangels thing was pretty cool. And now it seemed dead already.
Ascendancy was still around despite that attack the news was filled with. Back and fully restored, if the reports could be believed. This was bad. The adulation for the man had only grown, for some ever reaching the point of worship.
The very thing that the Atharim was meant to protect from- and what they feared- was happening. The reborn gods were being viewed as Gods, as more than men. It was only a matter of time before that spread and got worse.
It had been why she had struck up a conversation with White when she happened to see him out and about. Her experience put her among the top Atharim in the world. Someone had to make something out of this mess. And she was an Archangel. Apollyon still needed killing.
Course, being contract, he wasn't exactly gonna be motivated by devotion or the war for humanity. He was far more pragmatic. He just liked killing monsters, which she totally understood. If the god's had not returned, she would have been happy hunting the rest of her life. But life was what it was, not what you wanted it to be.
But at least he had been amendable to hanging out. He was far more her speed than Yoshi. The man was so stiff and formal. White was someone she could hang with. And who knew? Maybe she could get him to join her somehow. Before the cancer of god-worship spread.
"I gotta say, it's a good safe house. Neighborhood's a little rough. They give you any trouble?"
In the days after the Atharim's bloody retarded attempt to kill Nikolai in his own damn fortress, Hood's stockpile of safehouses and evacuation plans had been seriously depleted. It seemed in the absence of their oh-so-charismatic leader, the Atharim of Russia were a fractious lot. In-fighting, the settling of grudges, and the formation of splintered camps had led to dozens of Atharim had sought him out. The Old World Atharim just didn't seem cut out to operate without a set leader.
Luckily, the Atharim had saw fit to ensure he had been well funded in setting up those safe houses and escape routes.
That said, all such resources were finite, and he had no where to forward his current 'guest' to in the city. Unless, of course, he were to tap into his own safe houses and escape routes. And as such, he didn't have anywhere to pawn his most recent guest off to. Not immediately, at least.
So she was drinking his beer.
"Sparked a gang war, then killed off the worst of them before the first C-Can was dropped off here. The rest backed off after."
He pulled the pair of steaks he had been dry-aging for the past few weeks, which had then spent the last few hours marinating, and slapped the pair on a plate already loaded in thick slices of onion, peppers, and mushrooms.
It had been a bloody little turf war, that had gotten the usual investigation by the police. But in the after math, it had been fairly simple to 'encourage' most such groups from acting in the area. There was still petty crime of course, but the bigger groups had wisely opted to stay out.
Next was the butter; horseradish and chive. He was a stickler for quality; he spent more on fresh food then on ammo, most months. The cow had been butchered and the steak aging for three weeks. The butter was fresh churned, the horseradish and chives, much like the rest of the ingredients, came from a local farmers market. No radiation baths or pesticides. Not that he actually had anything against such things, but he was well paid, well invested, and had nothing else to spend money on.
A plate next to the sink, opposite the steaks, held trimmings of fat and grit which would end up tossed under his deck where those damn flea-bag dogs had taken up residence. He tolerated their presence as a deterrent and warning, and as a trash compactor. Metro dogs, they left to board the morning metro cars into busier parts of the city, where scraps of food were easy to find, then back out on the evening trains to find safe places to sleep.
So when they started barking and snarling under the steps, he wiped his hands off on a towel thrust through his belt and slipped his Landwarriors onto his face.
A distant apartment block, hidden on the balcony of an old retired couple, was the internet router and laser-transmitter that provided the signal for the safehouse. Anyone trying to track him through cyber space would have been led to that old folks place.
Also hidden on that balcony was a thermal camera on a gyro, overlooking the back of the house and its neighbors. Others were hidden elsewhere in the area. At that hour, there weren't many folks in such a run down area out and about, and the two clearly stalking his house stood out easily enough.
The fact that there were only two of them meant either they had no idea who they were dealing with, or they were very arrogant.
He glanced over at Jacinda, flashing a predatory smile. "Company."
White played the host, getting dinner prepared and all. She appreciated that. She wasn't much for cooking herself. She could rustle up food when on a hunt. And she carried rations with her for those lean times or when she needed energy. But food wasn't that important to her other than the fact that she needed it. At least, not enough to go out of her way for it. Which was all just a fancy way of saying she wasn't a foodie.
That wasn't to say that she didn't like a thick juicy steak if someone else was making it. The smells from the kitchen went well with the beer. She felt relaxed.
As White explained why a neighborhood became all nice and safe like she couldn't help but laugh. Sounded about right. Most people were little more than animals, especially when they ran in packs. She'd seen a few on a couple street corners, eyeing people, crouched down in their stupid Addidas tracksuits, bottle of 40 in their hand. Just waiting. A bunch of baboons or chimps, mostly. And they needed to be dealt with just as seriously, fear for life and limb overcoming any potential score or whatever.
Suddenly, the pack of mutts started barking loudly. She was only momentarily caught off guard. White, though, was grabbing his land warriors. Smart. Noisy alarms.
"What's up?"
she asked, standing. He turned to her with a look that made her smile nastily in return.
"Company."
It was all he said. But it was all he needed to say. She reached for batons that were on her leather coat. The carbon steel was heavy enough to crack the thickest head or break a femur in one blow. She had her side piece too, but that was it. After all, she
had planned on having a relaxing day of doing nothing much.
"Sounds like fun. How many? Lead the way."
It was etiquette, after all. His house, his attackers.
Edited by
Jacinda, Mar 21 2017, 05:19 PM.
(( wrapping this up vaguely ))
What they had thought of as an easy target had been not so easy. She was an archangel for a reason and he was scary for a reason.
The tin can had been easy to penetrate once they got past the dogs. But what they hadn't expected was the ability to defend what was on the inside.
With very little damage taken Henrik and been shot in the foot and Stephan the shoulder before they retreated into the shadows. They had given up their chase. It wasn't worth dying for. Thankfully they weren't chased into the tunnels where they fled to. For now they would hide. For now Stephan and Henrik would hide until the Regus needed them again.
That call came sooner rather than later...