‘Do you think it's our fault that Marnoch and her people are in power now? We caused utter chaos the last time we were here. Killed a lot of people as well,' asked Dawn as we walked along a Saxon street towards where the Were lived.

'Definitely. Well done for keeping shtum when Marnoch mentioned that by the way. I nearly puked when she did. I never thought that we'd have such a catastrophic effect.'

'Thank God no-one knows it was us! she said.

'I suggest we keep quiet about that. It might curry favour with Marnoch and her people, but the Vampyres and Were would kill us in the blink of an eye. Probably take their time doing it if I'm honest. Make an example of us and damn the consequences.'

'Right. Gotcha. Won't mention a thing. Never happened. Lips are sealed. Completely forgotten what we were talking about,' she said. 'Reckon we're going to have to fight this time?'

'Most definitely. Been working on your Spells?'

'Yes, according to Professor Marie my flame is at Level 4. I'm one level above where I should be. And I've also managed to get my lightning to Level 3. All my Icons are ready. Oh, and I've brought guns too.' She patted the go-bag I'd told her to pick up. It was a 5.11, 30 litre, more than large enough to carry a couple of weapons, ammunition, knifes, medical supplies, water and food. And a change of underwear. 'Got my bullets charmed as well. And considering what we’re facing, I bought a full loadout of silver, left most at home. I put those on your tab by the way.'

Bloody hell, I thought, wincing so hard it hurt. Silver bullets were just that, the rest of the round was normal, but the part which did the killing was pure silver. Dawn preferred weapons which used the 9mm round. Each round had a bullet weighing 7.5g. With silver costing as much as it did, that meant that each bullet she fired cost me around £2.80. Her Beretta 92FS had a magazine capacity of 15 rounds. Which mean £42 per pistol magazine. She carried at least 5. Then there were the sub-machine gun magazines. Roughly 30 rounds per magazine. That was £84. Again, she had at least 5. Over £600 worth of bullets. Which could be blasted through in the blink of an eye.

'Oh, and I forgot to tell you, the Quartermaster did me a deal on a couple of Silver aerosol grenades,' I staggered at that point, placing my hand on a passer-by for a second, ignoring their indignant squawk. 'Only £300 each.'

'Well, good to know that this Mark is paying well,' I said, heart fluttering at the thought that my apprentice was carrying over a grand's worth of silver in her go bag. And I was right, the Mark was paying well. We usually got a minimum of £10,000 per Mark, tax free. But out of that came all costs. Healing, as opposed to just popping along to the local A&E, cost a fair amount and because our jobs were inherently dangerous, we tended to have good relationships with Healers, and a good line in credit.

But this Mark, this Mark was different. Especially now that a Merlin had been killed. We were looking at an even £50,000. And the more victims, the higher the bounty.

'Yeah, I've ordered dozen more. I reckon we'll be needing them,' said Dawn with a cheesy grin plastered across her face, 'I can't bloody wait!'

'Please, babes, just ... just stop talking for a moment, okay?' I couldn't fault her, but it would have been nice if she'd spoken to me about it beforehand. Just so I could dim her enthusiasm slightly. And save a few hundred pounds.

'Yeah, okay, sure. Problem?'

'No, just feel a little sick. Overindulged in the Victoria Sponge.'

'Cool, well come on, let's see these suspects of ours.'

*

If anything, the area run by the Were was even more run down than it had been before. There were far more ruined and burned-out buildings, clear signs of the fighting that taken place. Any Mundane that watched the news could have been shown this and known exactly what had happened. And been able to tell that whoever lived in this area had well and truly lost.

'Wow, this place is fucked up!' said Dawn, shifting her grip on her Vector SMG. 'Looks like Syria!'

'With all the factions facing off against each other here, you're probably right. Doesn't look like they've spent much time rebuilding either.'

'That's because the bitch has stopped the workers from coming here.'

A woman, tall, with long brown hair and impressive facial tattoos stepped out of a doorway. Her movement was languid, her eyes predatory. My claws unsheathed in an instant, my body reacting instinctively to the unspoken threat. Dawn snapped the SMG up to her shoulder, stepping slightly to her right to make sure her field of fire was clear.

'Easy, tiger,' the woman said, spreading her arms wide, 'I come in peace. For now.'

'Okay. Well, if you come in peace, perhaps you could help. We're looking for JP and Snowfell. Just want to talk to them about a couple of things which have turned up Above,' I said, willing my claws away. A smile slipped across her face.

Fucking Were, I thought. My people hadn't even been in the country during the Pogrom, but the instinctive hatred and suspicion was ingrained, nonetheless. Shockwaves caused by it had spread across the world rapidly. Rapidly for the Middle Ages that is. Communities thousands of miles away from Britain had found themselves torn apart by conflict. My Grandparents would talk about it as if it had happened only yesterday.

'How much?' she said.

'How much what?' asked Dawn, weapon not-quite pointing at the Were.

'How much are you going to pay for my help? Couple of mercs come asking about my people, there's got to be money in it.'

'We're not mercs,' I slipped my hand into my pocked and pulled out my badge, 'we're Agents. It would be best if you just helped us out of the kindness of your heart. If you have one.'

'Ooooh, catty. Calm down kitty.'

'Enough with the cat jokes, I'm well aware of my nature,' I said through gritted teeth.

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'Fine,' she said, hands raised, 'how much trouble are they in?'

'None so far. Just need to clear somethings up.'

'Not happening,' said a voice from behind us. Turning, I saw two men - perfect matches for the descriptions that we'd been given by Marnoch - a few yards back up the street. Closing my eyes for a moment, I gave myself a mental kicking.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, I could see Dawn from the corner of my eye still covering the woman, at least she's on the ball.

'Why not? If you're innocent you've got nothing to hide,' I said, readying myself to Activate my Icons. These lads weren't going to be letting us walk free unless we could come up with a bloody good reason.

'That's what pigs always say. And you're pigs,' said the one on the right. He had a still-healing scar which cut straight across his face, top right to bottom left. Even from where I stood, I could see that the stitches holding it together were clumsy with the flesh around the scar looking inflamed. Hygiene didn’t seem to be high on people’s agenda around here. Even with a Were’s ability to heal faster than normal, the wound was surely giving him issues.

'Well, actually no. Pigs are police. We're most definitely not police. We're agents of the Merlins.'

'Same thing,' said the one on right. 'Merlins, Police. All the same. Treat us like shit. Pigs; the lot of them.’

'Only one good thing that comes from pigs. Bacon,' said the first. It felt like we'd stepped into a well-rehearsed routine. By the look of them they weren't necessarily geniuses. Bruisers? Dependable enforcers? Trusted seconds? Definitely. Leaders and geniuses? No. I decided to throw them a curveball.

'And I bet you're going to say you love to eat bacon? Well sorry, but I'm pussy. Meow,' I said, and then hissed, with fangs and claws bared, 'and there's not a chance you're going to be eating me. I don't swing that way.’

'What?' said the first one, face screwed up in confusion.

'Look, let's just get down to the nitty gritty. Which one of you twats is JP?' Neither answered. They didn't need to. As soon as I asked, the one on the right looked to Scarface. 'Brilliant, that must make you Snowfell. Which one of you is the killer then?' I was impatient to get to the point. Too impatient as I found out the next second.

There was a snarl from behind me, closely followed by a 'shit' from Dawn, and the sound of her SMG firing. JP and Snowfell leapt, literally, into action. Were'ing, JP turned into a Dog, Snowfell to a Chimp as they charged towards me. I activated my Shield first, pouring as much Power into it as I could, following it with my Sword Icon. I’d tweaked it so that it was now a rapier, bright blue.

I was barely quick enough. Snowfell flew through the air, feet first and fists raised above his head. It was like I was on Planet of the Apes, the modern version that is. In a split-second his feet crashed into the Shield, driving me back, forcing air from my lungs. Then his fists slammed down, dropping me to my knees. JP was quick on his tail, lunging forward, teeth snapping as Snowfell bounced off my shield. I shook my head to clear my vision, my head ringing. I swung my sword, more to gain me space and time to recover than to harm.

It worked, JP backing off with a yip. My vision cleared, just as Snowfell charged back in. He leaped forward, planted his fists on the ground and swung his feet through the gap between them.

'Fu...' I didn't have time for anything else. His feet, far bigger than a normal chimp's cracked into the Shield, slamming me into the ground. Whooping, I tried to draw the breath which had been forced from my lungs.

Pain, like a row of large needles being thrust into my calf, throbbed up my leg, making me gasp once again. JP had bitten me before dancing back to allow Snowfell to attack once more. Both fists crushed my chest, my Shield arm the only thing stopping him from caving in my chest. My ribs, already badly bruised from his last attack, popped. I couldn't tell how many, all I could feel, and hear, was them breaking. The pain was horrendous.

I panicked. Dawn was engaged with one enemy, whilst I was down and injured. 'Presto!' I gasped, activating my failsafe Charm, Willy Pete. Flames burst into life all around me. White hot they sent JP and Snowfell reeling, screeching as the flames raced to consume them. Nothing would extinguish them. They'd keep burning until whatever they had touched was fully consumed, spreading all over them. It stank. Thankfully I was protected from them by the very same Charm.

'I hope you're not going to lie there all day, boss. Seems like we've pissed off the Were again,' said Dawn as she stepped into view, popping a new magazine into her Vector.

'Fuck that. I'm the one who's pissed off. Utterly, fucking pissed off,' I said, ignoring the sound of JP and Snowfell's deaths. Still, I knew that their gasps, whimpers, and chokes would haunt me later. I pushed them to the back of my mind, looking over to where the female Were lay in a pool of her own blood. 'Looks like the bullets worked well.'

'Like a fucking Charm. Look on her face was priceless. I think she thought she was dealing with amateurs.'

'Understandable considering how easily they managed to blind-side us,' I said, letting her pull me to my feet. My vision went dark for a moment as the already bad pain in my ribs reached a new peak.

'Why are you pissed off, besides the fact we just had to kill the people we wanted to talk to?'

'Because that bitch, Marnoch, just used us to kill two of her enemies. Look at them,' I gestured to the charred bodies of JP and Snowfell. 'We specifically told her we were looking for Were which were cats, or wolves. She gave us the names of a Weredog and a Werechimp. Completely fucking different.'

'Who do you think the other one was then?' Dawn said, tipping her head to towards the third corpse.

'I don't know. How about we go and ask Marnoch?'

'Sounds like a bloody good idea. Can I have the first punch?'

*

Unfortunately, it wasn't going to be that easy. Our little discussion with the three Were had well and truly set the cat amongst the pigeons. Shouts and whistles rang out as we started to exfiltrate.

'Why am I getting a feeling of fucking deja vu?' asked Dawn as she swept the windows of the houses near us before taking a look at the rooftops. The houses were so jammed together that it was possible for a person with sure feet and a good head for heights to run along them. Considering we'd just fought a Werechimp, the odds were that we were going to be attacked on the ground and from the air.

'Make sure you keep your Shield up, it's going to be tiring doing so, but it's worth the effort,' I said.

'Don't worry, I remember the last time,' said Dawn. I could hear the stress in her voice. if I was perfectly honest with myself, I was feeling just as stressed. I just couldn't let it show. I’d done a quick Heal to deal with the ribs, but the memory of the pain still lingered. It was an experience I was keen to not repeat.

Action is always better than waiting for action. Although as a huge boar-like creature stepped out into the street before us and roared a challenge, I very nearly pissed myself.

'Contact!' Dawn's gun was spitting silver-tipped bullets before she'd even finished calling out the warning. I didn't give a toss about the cost at that moment. It was huge. Bloody massive. Almost the size of a full-grown Troll dog, its tusks were longer and thicker than my arm. Barely taking notice of the chunks of flesh being blown away by each bullet that struck home it ducked its head and charged.

'Bracing!' I Pushed more Power into my Shield, turning it from a buckler to something similar to a Roman legionnaire's scutum. There was no way that I could stand up to a full-blown charge from a creature such as this, so I Activated an Oak Icon. Magical roots dug deep into the ground beneath my feet.

I was just in time. Breathing out, I groaned as the Were-Boar hit. The impact rippled through every bone of my body, it hit so hard that lost my vision for a couple of seconds. Shaking my head in a desperate attempt to clear the spots before my I eyes, I sent an arc of Lightning out in front of me, blindly waving my hand.

'Clear!' I cut the Arc as soon as I heard Dawn's voice.

'Fuck me, boss, he was a big bastard!' Stars were still dancing across my vision as I stared down at the creature. 'Knocked himself out on your Shield. Didn't see the point of wasting any more rounds. Didn't seem to be doing any damage anyway.'

'What, apart from the smoke coming out the holes you mean?' I said pointing at her impressive groupings. Smoke rose lazily from the bullet holes.

'Well, yeah. But he didn't seem to give a shit,' said Dawn.

'Can you hear that?' I asked?

'What?'

'Nothing. The calls have stopped,' I said.

'Well, let's not look a good horse in the mouth!' said Dawn, jogging ahead down the street.