Having a sample was excellent.  Now if only the boy god would join them.  He was illusive.  Though a new name popped up on his kill contract.  Jacob Dean was merely a face and a name and very little information.  But clearly Atharim, or he'd not have been able to enter into the system.  Personally verified, an American Atharim.  Old school American Atharim even generational family, much like Durante himself.  What little they could pull from the American records merely indicated an account and years upon years of kills being paid out.  The American's were so unorganized.

Though maybe this man would meet his match.  So far no one had been able to lull the boy into the ground.  Attacking him seemed a mistake.  Though he was becoming obvious now.

But this critter was more than enough to keep Angelika busy.  It was unique.  A creature like none other.  Drawing blood drew upon the parasite that gave it it's abilities.  An endless supply of contamination if handled properly.  It was chupacabra like, yet it mutated the victims in a way that was not.  There was rougarou mixed into the DNA.  The protein markers found in the boys blood coursed through the creature feeding and controlling the body of the host.  

Scans indicated the parasites congregated in a specific part of the brain and other areas of the body changing and arranging and providing instructions for the body.  The rougarou DNA pushing for flesh and it didn't seem to be specific to its own kind, more like it didn't care as long as it was raw and bloody and the fresher the better.  Very much like the fictitional zombie, but the creature was very much alive.

There were still so many tests to run.  And there was so little time.  

Angelika awaited her order of lab rats and other creatures.  If she were so lucky she might even get a young human to test upon -- a criminal who deserved far worse.  No need to sentence them to death, they'd suffer enough at her hands.

After the tunnels, Allan spent his time between the Ascendancy's study and training.  The book he couldn't leave with pulled at his attention.  The things the gods of old could do was astounding, and they didn't even have half the power of the Ascendancy himself.  These recordings were of the end of their civilization, they were a dying breed, thanks to the Atharim.

There were curiosities among it.  Traveling instantaneously from one place to another, using devices that teleported you to different timelines, a fucking multi-verse of realities.  It was like reading the most base sci-fi and fantasy book alive and yet these cultists believed it to be true.  And to be fair Allan believed them. They were barely scratching the surface with the nine.  The Ascendancy shared his knowledge to a degree, but they were all stumbling in this new found era of power.  Floundering and fumbling.  One day they'd reach those heights and be worshiped again.  But there were dangers out there -- the Atharim being one of them, creatures like the Ijiraq too.  They needed to be hunted to extremes and eradicated like they had eradicated these so called gods.  Turn about was fair play.

Something about these traveling gateways pulled at Allan.  He had no idea why, or how or even what it meant, but he was drawn to it.  How would one even begin to think about such things?  Teleportation via science was just theory in its most base form -- a baby thought even.  It still was impossible.  But this wasn't science.  But with the power and science, maybe they could create something?  Wasn't the consul working with programs and scientists and defining things with the utmost care.  Surely someone would have a thought.  A skill -- a talent for such numbers, equations.  Or maybe the ability itself reborn.

Allan set about the facility looking for intrigued fellows.  It was a big place. And lots of faces.  But the labs, they'd be his best bet.

Jacob Dean
American Atharim Hunter
Age 67

Jacob was Noel Durante's (Nox's grandfather) best friend and like an uncle to Bryan (Nox's father). He hunted with the Durantes on a regular basis. Nox and Aurora grew up calling him Uncle Jake despite no blood relaltion.

Jacob was there when Bryan's father died and was the one who relayed the news to the family. They all felt the loss.

Jacob has been unable to get in touch with Bryan since Cleo's passing. He's been looking for the family friend on and off again for years until he finds the recording of Nox that's gone viral of the kid he once knew and a reborn god getting the shit kicked out of him.

Jacob takes it upon himself to hunt down the entirety of the Durante family and kill them all and heads to Moscow to take out the reason he has to kill his family.

Growing up Atharim

Jacob was born into the Atharim. He knew nothing else. His father before him knew nothing else. And so it would be until the ends of time. Or until Jacob died childless and without heir. The Dean line would die with him.

The road was harsh. His education lack luster, though through the good graces of the law homeschooling was easy in nearly all 50 states. Though they hailed from Colorado most of the time. Their base high in the rockies, where they called home, if it were a home. It had been where Jacob was born. And where his father had died. His mother had left his father when Jacob was 10. She'd had enough of the life. It had been surprising at all that she'd stayed.

Jacob's education revolved around killing monsters. He knew how to read and do the basics of everything else -- enough to pass the GED when he was 16. His life was all about killing monsters. It was rough, never had a roof over his head for more than a day at a time. The stars were his blanket during the summer, and in the winter they huddled in the truck and kept themselves warm by sheer will.

Hotels were expensive, shit motels too. Money better spent on food and gear, than sleeping in style. There were safe houses scattered across their territory, but all matter of scum hit them up too. Men who were in it only for the money -- or worse yet the thrill of killing a beast. They weren't in it for the cause -- for the innocent lives saved. They weren't Atharim -- just fucking cowboys looking for their next adrenaline rush and payday.

Darkest Secret

It wasn't long after Jacob turned 16 and his father let him venture out on his own that he met Noel Durante. A year or two older than himself, already married with a kid on the way. Doing his duty early he said. Loved his wife who stayed in the mountains not far from a safe house. She knew the game, but she choose to be a resource instead. Finding the jobs, relaying information. Not one for the hunt, which was good for the kid they were about to bring in.

Jacob tagged along with Noel at first. Their friendship blossomed over stories of their travels alone. And even more so when they found themselves picking up the same mark and taking it out together. It was simple, and easy. Until it wasn't.

Noel's boy Bryan was two when things changed. The friendly handshakes turned to soft touches. Back rubs after a hard fight became a thing. Shared showers to save on water -- not that they were paying for it. A room with two beds became one shared between the two of them. It was slow and secret even to them. Neither man acknowledged the shift in their relationship, it just was.

In public it was two best friends hanging out, having a good time. Friendly ribbing, names being called back and forth, fights and feuds. It was everything it should have been. But in the quiet darkness of a hotel room, it was more. And that's how it would remain until the day they both shared the earth one last time and found peace among the stars. Maybe one day they'd meet again. But not anytime soon if Jacob had his say in the matter.

Black Viper

Noel wasn't the only secret Jacob hoisted on his soul. There were others. Many others, but only one was kept in the same regard the identity of the Black Viper. One would think it was a family heir loom, but it wasn't. It was handed down from worthy hunter to worthy hunter. The gods had just reemerged in the day and age, they were kids, but Jacob had been The Black Viper for the past 8 years. His predecessor having found him worthy when he single handedly wiped out a nest of sin eaters above a brothel in the Texas desert. The brothel no longer existed, but those lovely ladies, they found new residences -- better accommodations too without those fucking leeches draining everything in sight.

When the gods returned Jacob took it upon himself to push the bounds of the Black Viper, taking whatever cases he could and downing godling after godling and nothing could touch him. His reputation preceded him in the Atharim way. And sometimes he even got a call to do a job. Gotta be sure, was usually the answer. But Jacob found that most of them were cowards. These were kids after all -- who wants to kill a kid. It wasn't a great gig, it was hard on the head. There were nightmares, faces in is dreams. He'd never not see them dying, but he didn't shoot them in the head like the others -- no he watched the light go out. He'd remember the children he took.

Worst Day Ever

Every hunter knows they are going to die. It's burned into their soul from the moment they pick up a weapon. They aren't going to see the sun one day. And that one day is likely gonna be sooner rather than later. Every hunter knows it will happen. And they see it happen every day -- see a hunter die to a monster who just got the upper hand.

It's a sad day. But it's a horrible day when it happens to someone you know -- someone you care about.

When that day arrived for Jacob he wept for three days at the mangled corpse of his best friend. No food, no water, and two dead bodies stinking up the air.

The oni was by far the biggest one Jacob had ever seen. Noel too. Thick as fuck grey armor plating for skin. Even the soft spots were hard. The eyes were small and it was massive in size.

The two days before it had killed two grizzlies and a bobcat. Nearly pulled them apart from the look of the corpses they'd buried deep in the caves where it called home.

It caught them unaware. Stealthy mother fucker -- which was typically not the case of big hulking creatures, but this one was smarter than most. It grabbed Noel's shoulder and ripped his head clean off. There wasn't a scream. No sound except blood pumping through the remnants of the body that a second ago had been his best friend.

It was a close call. Hardest kill he ever had to make while tears streamed down his cheeks. But the bolt flew true and the Oni collapsed on top of Noel's body. It had taken a day to retrieve his friend from the mass for a proper burning.

It took Jacob a week before he returned to Noel's family and told them of his death. Nox and Aurora had been three. They never got to know their grandfather, and Jacob took up the mantle, telling them stories and teaching them as Noel would have done. Nurturing the hunters in both of them. The boy was eager to please, Jacob saw himself in him. And she was a spit fire -- keeping the whole family in line and smart as a whip. He fostered her love of learning and insured she could protect herself and her brother. He gave her her first computer against her father's wishes. Girl needed more than a fight. Needed purpose -- a reason to keep on the fight. She found it and boy did she do wonders with it.

See Sig below.

If the rotating bugs anyone please let me know and I'll opt out of the rotation and use the individual images and swap out manually or plug into bottoms of posts

Even for Jaxen, it took some digging to find out anything about Almaz online. He concluded that the club must be one of the most exclusive places in the city known only to the obscenely wealthy or the obscenely connected. It was a maddening puzzle how Mikhail wormed his way in a place like that while Jaxen hadn’t even heard of it. He had to conclude that the guy must have snuck in, which was unlikely given their reputation for security, or he was a bigger player than Jaxen appreciated. Both were good marks against him in Jaxen’s eye, but he meant to find out either way.

So Mikhail brought the connection and Jaxen brought the money. He had to move it around, of course. His trust would only decline payment to someplace bordering on illegal. Jaxen filtered it through the generic category of ‘entertainment’ to make it work, but he had plenty of experience in that regard. How else did he pay for hookers and playmates? Not that he needed to pay to get it, but sometimes you don’t want to have to deal with girls and their bullshit expectations. Sometimes you just want a good lay and move on with your life. Was that so hard to ask? The very thought conjured up memories of Zephyr. The kind of thoughts that coursed heat through his skin and made him check the calendar for their next date. It wasn’t quite time yet, and given that Jaxen was pumped through with about every kind of drug available to prevent unwanted pregnancies, he assumed their dates would continue for a good year before she caught wise to the sad truth that Jaxen must simply be infertile. Poor girl, well, not that she had anything to be sad about after a year of infinite Jaxgasms, so he was going to get it while the getting was good.

He was leaning against a light post, legs crossed at the ankle, when the luscious ass of an Indian girl walked past. He'd had a thing for them ever since being shipped to Mumbai at the tender age of sixteen. Her dress left little to the imagination, and with those hips for inspiration, Jaxen could imagine a lot. In the company of two white girls, she paid him no attention as she walked by, but when she looked over her shoulder and those black rimmed eyes flashed at him, he promptly forgot about Zephyr and shoved off to see if she wanted to hook up.

Now, Jaxen looked good tonight. He had on a three-piece velvet suit the color of dark chocolate with a black shirt and black tie that hugged his body just begging for hands to come stroke the seductive sheen. His hair was coiffed in his signature pieces, and his facial hair ran a dangerous shadow along his jaw. He looked sinful, just as he preferred. Plus Almaz sported a dress code: look like money or GTFO.

“Hey,” he said as he caught up, but she only called out a simple, “No,” over one shoulder through a sheet of shiny black hair. 
“Where you off to?” he prodded just in case.
“No,” she called impatiently, and Jaxen decided there was enough of a bite to know she wasn’t just teasing. 
“Your loss,” he bowed devilishly playful, biting his lower lip ever so thoughtfully as his hands twiddled with a vial in his pocket. He enjoyed the view until they turned out of sight. 

Then he returned to his corner to wait on Mik.

The desire to survive pressed gifts like jewels into her grasp, and Nesrin gripped tight. It never felt like a curse to force her will on others to get the things she needed or wanted, her focus so razor-sharp in its intention she never even remembered being Sick. She was barely thirteen when that world first opened up like an oasis spring in the desert, cynical already, and yet still a child with a child’s natural beguilements. Of course magic was real; as real as the dreams she had always had at night, each coveted like treasure for the escape they offered from a world in which she was forced to hide to survive.

Before that she learned things no child ever should, yet even in youth and supposed innocence Nesrin understood that out of the strangers she might turn to, women would care for a little girl better than men. Childhood taught her fear, from an alcohol-soaked father to the turbulent world around her that did not deign to notice the child cowered in its shadows. Disasters wrecked the globe in the years before her birth, and Nesrin never knew anything different from the broken pieces left in its wake; a society in restless and angry flux, its people railing against what had been taken from it. Sometimes she imagined her mother was in those protesting crowds. But if fear watered the ground on which she grew, it was a resilient weed which sprung up again and again from the cracked dirt.

Of course, the perfumed-shrouded whorehouses of the backalley souks were not safe forever. Nesrin did not idolise virtue but the idea of violation flooded her cold. If a child might be justifiably protected, the freshest flush of womanhood was instead like dusting off an unexpected diamond, and no one could afford to keep it hidden. But Nesrin would give nothing of herself except what she was willing, and certainly not to line the purse of another, no matter what they felt she owed.

So she fled.

By now home was a forgotten concept, as spurious as the ghost of a mother she had never known. The universe had furnished her with something of more value than the novelty of her virginity, and with that gift Nesrin would make something of herself. She did not know if her father ever searched for her. To this day she does not know if he lives.

For the next two years she survived. Necessity makes a good teacher, but it was still just surviving, and Nesrin wanted more than to chase a staid existence. By fifteen she was living on a university campus in Giza, masquerading as a student. There would be no piece of paper at the end of it, but she hardly needed one: the learning was the point, and it was not only books she studied, but the people and the ways they bent to her gifts.

It was where she met Balthazar. With red hair and milk-bottle skin, he stood out for all the wrong reasons in the slick desert heat. But his voice was thick with British aristocracy and it made an interesting mark. Cairo was in the thick of more civil unrest; a dangerous choice of study for a Custody man, and especially one interested in what amounted to historical esoterica. The monuments and ancient architecture that might have once lured academics and tourists alike had all but been shaken to their roots by natural disaster and terrorist infighting.

Her skin prickled unease when he attempted to befriend her, naturally suspicious before she calculated for the advantage. She’d lied about everything; her name, her age. Her entire persona here was an artifice. Yet it transpired in a slip that he knew her birth name, and when she was finished being terrified of what it meant, she was impressed and curious as to where the knowledge could possibly have come from. And why. She was familiar enough with the con to feel its soft little touches, but if she knew anything about cults, it was that they gave before they collected.

But the Asquiths were monied. So Nesrin took.

As far as cults went, it wasn’t a bad one, and if it was stooped in archaic ritual and ideology Nesrin had no real trouble ingratiating herself. But she was careful not to let the reliance make her soft: to use them more than she trusted them, at least until she was certain what price they meant to extract from her. The Asquiths have paid for her education. In DVII they are akin to royalty in their infamy and wealth, but Nesrin has always lived on their fringes. She’s the poor friend of one of their rich sons, kept afloat because it pleases such people to feel charitable. In fact she’s never even been to the rolling estates Balthazar always described in Giza. The distance suits her though; she’s seen first hand the ravages of the media, when Balthazar’s sister was recently crucified at the trial of her husband’s murder, and ultimately cast loose from the family as a result. Publicly at least.

Nesrin prefers the shadows and the people who dwell there. She is well travelled and speaks several languages, a natural sponge for knowledge and learning. She has never shared what she can do with her patrons, though there is clearly a deep vein of mysticism within the Di Inferi’s teachings that might have made the confession to her advantage. Of their resources she makes great use. But she does not seek elevation among them. She does not seek elevation at all. Yet neither is she deaf to all their teachings.

She has grown a personality she knows the Asquiths find pleasing, but beyond their reach is someone else. It would be remiss not to have a contingency. Though Nesrin has long realised the way she’s been patiently primed (it’s not like she lacks the means for discerning answers for herself), it was not until the announcement of channelers that the first inklings of intention were made clear to her, and she realised how deep the conspiracy went.

It will send her to Moscow.

Her plan was coming together.  But not exactly in the way she had first envisioned it.  The godling she'd been after was much too troublesome.  But he had resources only one other godling had.  It wasn't money that he had, but a foot in the door to the Ascendancy and one into the Atharim.  Which was also the troublesome spots.  Stalking her prey had lead Zef to another godling -- one far more malleable.  And her plans changed almost on a dime.

And then when she was ready to put in the time and effort to raise a god, she finds a girl who was ready to die.  While Zef commended the woman for her bravery and yet her lack of it to follow through she was grateful for the woman's aid.  And now she had two gods on the line.  Her plan was coming together.

Promises had been made, and now it was time to begin that.  Zef made her way into one of the safe house armories.  It had been the third she'd tried looking for the specifics on Eido's list.  They weren't rare, most Atharim had a close combat weapon of choice, but most preferred to keep the monsters at range.  She certainly did, but close combat was always necessary.  Specially when innocents were involved.

And in each safe house she booted up the connected systems and scanned for any new information on either Jaxen or Eido, but none had been found.  She needed to get that hacker in the system.  But that meant talking to the troublesome god which he may or may not fireball her ass if she came near him again.  He wasn't well responsive the first time -- none of them had.  Though they had been set free.  He thought her dead.  But he'd be surprised.  She had that going for her.  While in the system she also checked on his status.  It was clear he'd been flagged again with the latest videos emerging.  No one liked a god showing off.