Half an hour and a long conversation on the phone later I pulled a

  red leather jacket over my outfit before making my way downstairs.

  The normally quiet house surprisingly alive with noise, I wasn’t

  even at the top of the stairs before I heard the distant arguing.

  Arguing in the sort of tone one made where you pretended you were

  whispering while yelling, I let out a small sigh as I walked towards

  its source in the dining room with Barbie close behind.

  The door closed, my dad’s recently acquired rottweiler Helsing

  slept across the threshold with his body laid flat, only looking up

  as I asked, “do I want to get involved?”

  Helsing told me, wagging his tail as he

  stumbled to his feet and padded over to get his entry tax of pets,

  Great, my dad was fighting with my current mentor, and I was going to

  probably end up stuck in the middle.

  Well, at the very least I probably needed to peek my head in and

  that it wasn’t important, and taking a moment to

  gather my courage I stepped forward and entered without knocking. The

  dining room table greeting me with a mess of scattered papers and old

  photos, jackets tossed across chairs, everything drenched in

  cigarette smoke, and three people scattered across the room of whom

  only two were familiar.

  My dad was the most animated person there, not even speaking and

  pacing the room as he rubbed his beard with determined anger. The man

  he was speaking to, Samuel looking in his thirties if grayed heavily

  and wearing a suit of all things, barely moving as he declared,

  “Martin, how long have you been sitting on this? Are you even sure

  you got it right, are you sure-”

  And Samuel stopped as he saw me, closing his eyes and taking in a

  deep breath as I asked, “bad time?”

  “We were just talking,” my dad half-snapped, taking up a pair of

  papers from the center of the table and shoving them into a box he

  closed, “and Samuel was about to leave. As was his .”

  Samuel not moving from his spot, I took the break to turn my

  attention to the other woman in the room, someone I didn’t

  recognize. A shorter but broad woman who physically looked fifty and

  must have been much older if a werewolf; a little fat though in the

  way a strongman was with broad arms and a stomach I could tell hid a

  good bit of muscle. Tattoos much like my own, the scarification

  common in the Purists, visible under the sports bra and sweats she

  wore, even along her neck and cheeks up to green-dyed hair.

  Her sunglasses were large, pressed to the skin and dark, and she took

  a long draw from the cigarette she was holding before asking in a

  thick accent I couldn’t place, “the daughter?”

  “I’m Mary,” I agreed, frowning as I tried turning over all the

  reasons another (hopefully former) Purist was here.

  “Chasseresse,” the woman answered slowly, chuckling darkly as she

  leaned forward, a pair of mismatched eyes catching me off guard as

  she lowered her sunglasses. One brown, the other a yellow so light it

  looked unnatural as she added on, “you can call me Chasse. I have

  the feeling you’d make the language feel quite ugly, little lady.”

  “We’ve worked together before,” Samuel said with a bit of venom

  behind the words, “you were on vacation, I was getting her help

  with a matter I was looking into with The Lady while she was in

  town.”

  “And yet I am so busy myself, and Martin stonewalls us all the

  same,” Chasse complained as she twirled her cigarette in the air,

  the smell only growing stronger as she stepped closer.

  I needed a cigarette.

  “He’s stonewalling us, but he’s right it’s probably not

  related,” Samuel muttered with a rub of his eyes, “superstition

  and legends aren’t going to help us actually figure out what’s

  going on. We needed to just figure out if it’s the Purists behind

  these killings, right?”

  “The guy killing hunters?” I asked, a little surprised The Lady

  was investigating that.

  And, to my slight surprise, Samuel brushed it off, “contacts of The

  Lady’s, no hunters.” a long pause, and he looked up to ask, “is

  someone killing hunters too?”

  I frowned, not sure if he was pulling my leg, and with some

  hesitation asked, “is that not why you’re here?”

  “No, your father failed to mention that was an issue,” Samuel

  stressed with an annoyed hiss, slowly turning to glare at my father.

  My dad crossed his arms, obviously not wanting to acknowledge

  anything as he paced a moment in place, “didn’t seem related,”

  all he had to say on the matter.

  I was about to complain, point out all the problems with that when I

  heard Leila yell and ask, “were you expecting someone, love?”

  “Just my mom, is she here?”

  “Not unless she drives a muscle car now,” my step-mom laughed,

  and Chasse and Samuel both tensed a moment before my dad.

  Taking their cue I left the room first, the wolf letting out a small

  growl, Barbie looking at me concerned as I walked to the kitchen

  where Leila cooked. A small affair with a breakfast counter she was

  preparing sides at while a large pot boiled on the stove.

  A tall woman with short-cut blonde hair, a decade older than me and

  relatively muscled, the woman was currently heavily pregnant and

  ready to burst. Wearing a pair of gray sweatpants and a large

  maternity gown that came to her knees, a nervous smile as she saw me

  and pointed to the window.

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  By now the owner of the vehicle had left his car, opening the trunk

  and humming a tune I could barely hear with my enhanced senses. In a

  pair of coveralls, blue latex gloves over his hands, and boots I

  didn’t need to look too hard to realize had duct tape thickly

  coating the bottom. His face uncovered, though strangely generic in a

  way I couldn’t quite place with the brown hair shaved pretty short.

  Alarms rang in my head, and it only took the faintest hint of

  mechanical pieces being slammed together for me to yell, “Leila,

  get down!”

  The man pulled a fucking machine gun from the trunk, a belt of

  bullets trailing behind it, and I myself hit the floor only a half

  moment before the world erupted in a scream of bullet fire. Glass

  shattering, wood splintering, bullets exploding, and the wolf

  growling behind it all as I shed my jacket and stripped all but my

  skirt. Modesty not , but something I would welcome as

  long as I could if I didn’t need to turn into a werewolf.

  We were under attack, an unknown foe, something

  resembling professional, and behind all that a nagging question as I

  yelled back, “is Percy outside?!”

  “Store, five minutes ago!” Leila yelled back with a surprising

  calm as she struggled along the floor in her pregnant state.

  She was a fighter, more experienced than most people not working for

  The Lady in fights, but pregnancy wasn’t exactly helpful for a

  firefight. I knew how much trouble I’d had in the Purists'

  pregnant, and I’d never had to lay low as well as I could and fight

  someone with a gun. Even if she was moving well, I knew I couldn’t

  rely on her if dexterity was an issue or if she needed to match me

  running.

  All the same, she pushed through it, head low as she moved to the

  kitchen sink and opened the cupboards under them. A shotgun halfway

  out before the top half of one the doors exploded and she fell back

  with a splatter of sweet smelling blood and a scream. My own blood

  racing with anger as I skittered over, glad to see her face still

  contoured in anger and the shrapnel in her shoulder not leaking too

  much blood.

  A moment later the gunfire died down, and I grabbed a rag from the

  top of the counter and tossed it to her as I told her, “I’ll

  handle him, can you walk?”

  “Arms stiff and I feel-” she stopped, cringing in pain as she

  gripped her belly, “fuck I hope that’s not bad.”

  I didn't ask anything else as I forcibly pulled her to her feet,

  making sure she could stand on her own wobbly legs as I ordered,

  “make sure the others are okay, Samuel’s a nurse he can take care

  of you. I’ll handle this guy as long as I can.”

  She nodded, her eyes glistening with fear and never leaving me as she

  stumbled off and I took the opportunity to plan.

  The man tossed his machine gun back in the trunk and pulled a handgun

  from his pocket with a surprising calm. His hands dancing along the

  gun as he started to slowly pace towards the home and a new

  realization hit me:

  He didn’t know there were werewolves inside.

  The air didn’t reek of silver, he wasn’t going in like he was

  expecting angry werewolves but injured and surprised humans. He was

  coming after my dad as a hunter, and wasn’t aware so many of The

  Lady’s allies were inside.

  A smile crossed my lips and, taking a chance, I slipped Percy’s

  shirt back on and decided to make a show of this.

  Dressed just as the man reached a now blown-out window, I watched as

  he kicked the rest of the wood and glass out of the bottom and

  climbed in. A soft whistle followed him as I, with some annoyance,

  realized it was , and an

  overall cocky air I hated even more as he dropped down and looked up

  at me with dulled surprise.

  “I wasn’t expecting guests,” the man declared in an accent I

  couldn’t quite place either, his confused expression suddenly

  breaking with a bright smile, “appetizers”

  He raised the gun with a speed that almost surprised me, and while I

  could have dived out the way and made this a real fight I let him

  shoot. My body erupting in pain for only a moment, the first two

  bullets slamming through my chest and a final one ripping through my

  bad eye. Every part of me giving out as I felt the world briefly fade

  to nothing and my brain found new pathways again and tried healing

  the old ones, My next conscious thought coming to on a cold tile

  floor and the man whistling once again as latex covered fingers

  pressed into my neck.

  My eye focused on him and Barbie standing behind the man, his eyes

  scanning the room before he frowned and looked down at me. Seeming to

  process I was still alive with several seconds of growing horror.

  Eyes focusing on him, pulse going strong, probably was getting a good

  view of the wound closing as I growled and readied to lunge…

  A final gunshot rang out through the air as my fangs were still

  coming in, blood splattering my face as the body crumbled on top of

  me and I jerked myself away. Looking up in shock at the woman

  standing a few feet away, someone I hadn’t been expecting and

  certainly hadn’t seen in a while.

  Shorter than even most old women, bright white hair cut into a bob

  and bangs, wearing a black dress and red coat that came to her knees,

  her over sized leather purse over one arm and the other held out with

  a revolver expertly gripped. Her expression calm, actually fucking

  and with a slow pace to her as she walked over to

  stand above me and a pack of plastic hit my face.

  “Have some decorum, Eva, it’s already ruining my day seeing

  you’re still alive,” my grandmother announced, obviously not

  knowing who I was. My hands fumbling around until I realized she’d

  thrown a packet of wet wipes on me, “Go on now, I’m sure you’re

  used to wiping a stranger’s fluids from your face, and I

  blood’s at least one of the more common ones.”

  “I’m Mary,” I muttered, a little annoyed yet

  person knew my mom and not me as I quickly wiped myself off as best I

  could. My grandmother stopping dead in her tracks to look me over a

  surprisingly long time as I worked. Most of the blood off me,

  stumbling to feet still having their neural-pathways heal while I

  leaned heavily on a counter for support and looked over to her,

  “I’m…um,” , “Mary.”

  “I see,” my grandmother said slowly, eyes narrowed as she glared

  daggers at me before dragging them to someone over my shoulder while

  holding her hand out for me to take, “Cynthia, darling, now care to

  explain-”

  “Mom!” my dad yelled, rushing from his room and pulling my

  grandma into a grip that looked like it’d break someone so old; the

  woman seeming surprisingly unimpressed as he asked, “are you okay?

  He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

  “Marty, I’ve killed werewolves, vampires, witches, fey, urban

  legends, and a reanimated T. rex once; I don’t plan to die in a

  fight, or I would have done so already. Besides, the doctor says I

  still have the health of a forty year old, and this man is low rung

  by mercenary standards,” my grandmother purred with a small giggle,

  “professional though, goes by The German Sword, if you got The Lady

  mad at you it’d explain it. I met him when Christopher and I had

  our alliance.”

  I sighed, head held low as I realized the implications of that even

  as I knew that the answer wasn’t going to be that simple. The Lady

  would have used supernaturals to do this, she wouldn’t have had

  someone attack while her own people were here. Someone was killing

  informants, hunters, and apparently there were mercenaries involved

  which I was was

  connected to that issue or we were having problems.

  I was supposed to have a fucking vacation.