Helios:
Moving through the smoke is tricky. You nearly stumble over a limp body but see her just in time. Long black tresses tumble over a loose fitting armored jacket. The beautiful mediterranean features of the woman are broken by spasms that rock her body as she is overcome and killed by the neurotoxin.

Shapes move like shadows in your mind, the only way to tell professional from not is who is choking on the gas and who isn't. Rising up the stairs out of the smoke, you come to the landing at the second floor. Hallways race on either side of you--bedrooms, linen cabinets and servant's quarters.

None of them scream to you that a mass-murdering ghoul is living behind their shelter. The stairs continue upwards to another level. Behind you the sound of several figures in heavy armor comes echoing up the stairs. They seem to be moving with purpose.

Helios arrives at the top of the stairs and takes the next set of stairs, not wanting to find out who's behind him. Not that he could make our their features anyways.

Helios:
You dash up the stairs, taking the next set two at a time. Here there are two doors, one to the right and one to the left. It appears that the top floor has been divided into two private suites. Each door is heavy oak, gilded and gaudy. An old style key lock appears to be all that stops you from entering.

Helios jiggles both doorknobs, checking to see if either of them are locked. Excessive noise is the last thing he wants right now. He does so very quickly, however, knowing that with those goons coming up the stairs, his time is running out.

Helios:
Neither door opens as you rattle the handle. The sound of footfalls on the stairs is getting closer.

Damn

Slinging his SMG, Helios pulls his katana from his back sheath and slices through the lock on the door to the left of the staircase.

If successful, he rushes into the room and closes the door again, sword at the ready.

"Does anyone out there besides myself have the gear to ignore that gas? Bust out your respirators folks. I need an answer from everyone before I can formulate a game plan.
...
And guys... I know this group. Personally. You can expect a mage, a sniper, a rigger, and four mercs. The mage and sniper are dealt with, so we should be ok there. These mercs are trained by the best, so we need to do this by the book."

Helios:
The katana digs heavily into the wood and gilt. It almost becomes stuck but you are able to clear it from the door. Time is running short, the team will be upon you in seconds.

Helios shoulder-charges the door, hoping to break it open.

Helios:
You rebound off the door once and notice that it has begun to move. Slamming your weight into it a second time, it is forced open. The bruises on your arm and shoulder are already blossoming under your coat.

The door closes quickly behind you. Welcome to the sitting room.

The room is well appointed with comfortable chairs, a full bar and women's lingerie strewn hectically. Your enhanced sense of smell catches the smell of blood, and beneath it the cloying smell of death and rotten meat that accompanies your prey. A gagged cry is picked up from the next room.

Having heard the stories of Ballefour's house, and your own first hand experience with flesh eaters, you know too well what is happening on the other side of the door. Apparently no one ever told young Lucien not to play with his food.

A short burst of EX-EX rounds rocks the door behind you. They're coming.

Gotcha!

"Guys, I'm in the room right next to Balfour. It's on the third floor, take both staircases going up right next to the room I busted in through," Helios whispers into his comlink, making sure he's situated out of LOS from the hallway. "Those mercs are right behind me though; I need backup and I need it NOW!"

Going over to the room where the horrific sound is coming from, Helios levels his silenced Manhunter at the lock and blows it off, kicking the door down once that's done.

"Helios, stand down. I repeat, stand down! Those guys are pros and there is no way for us to get to you in time. I suggest jumping out a window or finding a place to hide or you will be killed. Four to one odds and you're a dead man."

Outloud, Bishop says to Graves and Edana, "Come of you two, lets go save his hoop. Edana, keep an eye on the astral and make sure we're clear on that end."

Bishop's jog breaks into a full scale run for the building.

"Infiltation Team, be advised, Van Team is moving around back to enter the same way the mercs did. You move in through that window and we'll converge in on them from both sides."

Damn!

Helios hated giving up, but he had to admit that he wouldn't be any good to Seattle if he were killed by these mercs. He'd have to get Balfour later.

Helios looks for a window he can bust out of and get himself out of this mess.

Whoever you are in that room with him, please forgive me. If I could end your suffering quickly and immediately, I would...

As soon as Graves enters the building, he hits the colour controls on his jumpsuit for it to change into Urban camo.

As the Van Team comes around the back of the house, Bishop catches sight of the Hellhound pen. He reaches into one of his many pockets and pulls out a pair of grenades, loads them, and fires them off into the area the hounds are kept.

"I'm busting out of here," Helios says over the comlink, rushing for the nearest window and jumping through it.

Edana pauses and quiets her mind opening her senses to astral space, but not pushing her Will through the veil. She takes a deep breath, inhaling and inhaling and inhaling, drawing any hint or wisp of magic into her.

Herne chuckles, a hard sound that raises Grave's and Bishops' arm hair. Not by the hair on my chinny-chin, chin.

As Bishop fires his grenades at the hell hound pen, Graves holds his breath and pantomines a gas mask. Holding his sleeve close to his nose, Graves asks,"Edana, can you summon a hearth spirit to protect us from the stun gas?"

"Lets get in there," JT dons his resperator. His muffled voice barks orders to his K-9 in the darkness, "Kane, guard here. Guard." He enters through the window, and releases the invisiblity spell he holds on Kane. "If the mage is dead, I can move on undetected, and probably hold one or two more under my invisible spell. Tigger where is the target?"

Edana looks warily up at the brooding chateau as she wrestles her respirator on. Her heavily accented voice is muffled and even harder to understand than usual, "Considering what's going on, I don't think anything I conjured in there would be much interested in helping us."

She smiles wealky, invisible behind her mask, "But, it's worth a try. Have to get inside first." Herne moves in ahead of Edana, bow drawn, hammerhead arrow nocked. Edana moves in behind, shooting a grateful glance at Bishop as he catches her when she slips on a patch of ice at the side of the door. She ducks in through the low door into the dim kitchen.

She begins her conjuration and the smell of wet stone and wood polish, smoked and roasting meat.... and blood... grow heavy in the room. She throws her head back speaking into the astral plane as she draws the essence of the place to her, feeling the old power of the place beating in on her. We do not seek to harm this place as others do. Others - she imagines the symbol of The Society - do not respect this place and poison the air and shatter its bones. We seek only the flesh-eater. Help us to safely find him and safely leave with him.

Crashing through the window and landing with a roll, Helios rushes over to the part of the house where he remembers the rest of the team being, deciding it's better to go in with this bunch and capture Balfour than go back in alone and lose the mark.

Edana:
The air is quiet and still around you, bodies half-concealed by darkness resonate clearly in the astral realm. Slowly you watch the light of a cook's assistant fade out as his blood ooze out on to the cold tile.

Your summoning begins, tattered fragments of ancient memories stir and coalesce. An aged man, in victorian era clothing stands before you.

"Hunter's Child, we hear your call. The master of this house would shelter all those inside of it, but with the entrance of usurpers, the rules of hospitality must be set aside. Travel under my care, you shall be concealed from those you hunt and protected from what accidents may befall you in our house."

Helios:
The snow absorbs the impact of your fall, graciously tended by the magics that fill your body. With a lurch, you rise to your feet and stumble before running to meet your companions.

JT:
The team around you radiates with life, elsewhere within the house life exists, some above you, others on your own level moving in your direction.

"Guys!" Helios says as he rushes up, still feeling the effects of the stun gas.

"I don't know who those Society guys are, but their equipment is top-notch. Saw a patch on one of their armors - "In hoc signo Invictus," it said. Sounds Latin, but I'm not sure what it means."

"Alright, so a single-man stealth infiltration wasn't as good an idea as I thought it would be. Any other ideas?"

Over the comms: "All Team, converge on the stairway. Edana, can you have that spirit go check out the third floor and let us know when the opposition is coming our way?"

Edana nods, << Got it, Bishop. Right behind you. >> She closes her eyes, shaken by the sight of the bodies in the kitchen. These Society guys... she swallows, thinking not for the first time since she'd gotten the call from Gonzales, that she is in WAY over her head. Gonzales. Her fingers clench on the bow and she feels empty and angry. The bow trembles slightly and Herne gives her an appraising glance.

Thank you, Hearth Keeper. Please find these interlopers and keep us aware of their movements. I think you will find them on the third floor. One question as you go, Hearth Keeper, will the master of the house oppose us?

Edana's voice is muffled over the comms, << Done. Let's move. Do we wait at the stairs or head up? And aren't there usually dumbwaiters in these old places? >> She glances in the corners of the room, looking for the telltale chest high doors.

"Lets guard the stairs until we hear back from your spirit on what is going on up there. We can use the stairs as a choke point to trap the team in and shit them with some heavys."

"Guys, Balfour's got a victim in the third floor bathroom I just busted out of," Helios says over the comlink. "I heard..."

He stops, unable to bring himself to say it. Knowing that he's responsible for anything that happens to her because of his inability to save her.

Helios's arrival at the staircase that Bishop mentions halts his musings, and he joins the rest of the team at the rendezvous.

Edana:
"The Mistress-Master of this abode cannot oppose you, she has already fallen."

With that, the ancient butler fades up through the ceiling, rising intangibly through levels visible only to your astral sight. As you scan the room, you do see a dumbwaiter in the corner near the pantry. It appears to have been modernized when the cabinets were last refaced. A simple keypad controls the ascent and descent from the third floor to the basement.

Team:
You converge on the foyer. Security was obviously overwhelmed by a professional team using lethally efficient tactics. Most appear to have collapsed and died in the nerve gas, though a few have bullet wounds from shotguns and automatic weapons. There is a thin haze of smoke in the room and discarded casings from NATO rounds.

A woman screams.

"Tire pas! Tire pas!"

Gun fire echoes down the stairs.

Tigger looks to the team, "she said 'Don't Shoot'." He then goes springing up the stairs with violent intent.

"Tigger, wait! The ghoul's up there! And they've got stun gas!"

Helios follows Tigger up the stairs, SMG unslung and ready to fire, not willing to let someone else make the same reckless errors he made.

Maybe not everyone on this team is so different from me.

The invisable shaman stays right with the lead, that now being Tigger. He is ready to fire his IR Smoke to further camoflauge himself, in case the enemy is using thermo vision. As Tigger quickly moves ahead JT casts invisibility on him as well.

Team:
The sound of a third set of footfalls hitting the stairs and the movement of JT's marker on your battletac grids is all the sign that the shaman has given pursuit. You watch Tigger fade from view as he reaches the first landing.

Helios runs his damndest to catch up with Tigger, sweeping the first landing from side to side as he reaches it before following the hunter.

Edana blinks at Bishop and Graves as the other team streaks past them, her mouth hangs open. << Hostiles upstairs. Expect four. They are VERY dangerous. Armed with bad gas. I mean... >> She makes a face at Bishop. << Uh... Be careful. We're following. >>

She shakes her head as she follows Herne up the stairs, she calls over her shoulder, "Come on guys, can't let them run headlong into trouble alone."

Bishop curses under his breath, so much for tactics. Pumping his legs to bound up the stairs, he does his best to stay right behind Tigger, weapon at the ready.

Graves makes a grab for Bishop and holds him fast,"Just because the hotheads are rushing in, it doesn't mean you have to. Use your head, you got a tac comp, use it, don't think with your dick alright?"

<<Got it. Four. I will try to slow Tigger down a bit, let you guys catch up. I have IR smoke, so they shouldnt be able to detect us. Maybe we can flank them, and when you all open fire, we can catch them, not only off guard, but completely by surprise.>>

"Tigger slow down, we're making too much noise. Im going to launch smoke and we will sneak around to flank, as the rest of the team comes up the stairs," JT whispers.

"Hey, anybody got a spare gas mask?" Helios whispers to the team members coming up the stairs, not wanting to repeat his experience with the stun gas.

Bishop turns to face Graves, "Actually, its ok. If they are still on the fourth, we can use the stairs between two and three as the choke point instead of this set."

Team:
Tigger reaches the top of the stairs and bursts in to Ballefour's room. The door has already been blown from its hinges with explosive ammunition. Inside, the Society is spread out to keep melee from spilling over into the entire team. The central figure is holding a gun to Ballefour's head. To his right, an older French man is also held hostage. His hands are well manicured and his bedclothing made of silk.

"Stand down and no one else gets hurt."

Behind the figures in security armor you can see a private bedroom, a wheelchair is knocked down. A woman naked from the waist down has several lacerations and is partially flayed, though the cause of death was definitely the burst of gunfire which caused her chest cavity to collapse.

Oh god...forgive my cowardly soul, woman... Helios silently pleads as he sees the dead woman. The woman he could have saved had he just not fled.

His rage taking hold, Helios fights off the stun gas long enough to lay into those cowardly Society bastards.

"STAND DOWN, NOW, OR YOU'RE ALL DEAD!!!" he shouts, training his SMG (and its laser sight) on the nearest Society member just to hammer his point home.

His finger tenses on the trigger.

Go ahead. Give me a goddamn excuse...

Bishop lets the data feeds from Tigger and Helios flood his mind. Quickly he begins to compile the data and ready commands.

Tiny hold his ground.No we don't need this, looks like this is going to get messy really quickly.

Tiny's voice crackels over the comms.
"Just let me know where you want me to position myself. I am ready to get my hands really dirty."

Tigger rushes forward into the room, his hands moving in a blur. An assault rifle connects with his forearm as the Society member deflects the first feinting attack. The impulsive bounty hunter drives his palm heavily into the midsection of the newcomer.

Staggering back, the armored thug lowers his rifle. The sound of automatic fire roars through the small room. Two bursts fire in quick succession at Tigger.

The second Society member who has his hands free opens up on Helios. A torrent of gunfire and explosive ammunition.

"Last chance." Both hostage keepers shove their barrels into critical areas of their victims.

"Stand down." They are obviously ready to open fire, killing the hostages if anyone takes an agressive action.

Oh no. This is... this is bad. Surely they wouldn't kill Ballefour...? Edana's brow breaks out in beads of sweat. She can't tear her eyes away from the barrel of the gun at Ballefour's temple. Tigger moves in a blur. Then Helios rushes forward and the loud report of gunshots in close quarters makes the shamaness' ears ring. She is frozen while as the room leaps into action around her.

On three, Herne. She feels, the spirit's surge of assent roll across their link.

One...

"Stand down. I've got something that should help out. Let me sneak up there and if they don't see me coming, I can drop some freeze foam in on them before they know what hit em."

Bishop quickly holsters his pistols and activates his Rutheniums. He creeps his way up the last set of stairs, closing in.

Graves: "Negative. Remember the last time you tried that rutherium stealth trick? They have a hostage, what we have for now is a Mexican standoff."

Son of a...!

As the gunfire streaks towards him, Helios jumps towards the door they came in from (hoping to roll out into the hallway) and praying for his life.

I really need to learn the value of coordinating a plan with non-Infected hunting teammates...

"Give me a break Graves. These are Mercs, not the type to catch sight of me on the Astral."

"Analyse the situation. These guys got some serious backing and throw in the church connection, you want to gamble a hostage's life on they not having a mage? Be my guest, man."

As the sound of gunfire echoes again in the building, Graves mumbles something about how he should have stayed in Delta Force.

Helios:
By sheer luck or perhaps a higher power, your leap clears you from the path of the incoming bullets. You feel the inrush of air as explosions rip through the wall behind you and decimate the chair you land next to.