Having retreated to "the faerie ring" at Liam's suggestion, Willa and Connor continued their magickal preparations for the upcoming confrontation. Lee slipped back down the road as silently as a shadow and as fleeting as a ghost in hopes to delay their pursuers long enough to provide her companions additional time. She gave little thought to Liam's disappearance, focusing instead upon the need to know who and what their pursers were.
Pulling out his clips of ammunition, Connor looked at Willa. "Have anything which can give my bullets a boost?"
Willa nodded as she finished her first circle of the ring and retrieved her survival witch kit. Setting her pack within the faerie ring, she pulled out a vial of essential oil. "Spread some of this on the bullets, it will give them the bite to get through magickal protections." Taking up her wand, she eyed the ring. "We'll need to stay within the ring for my wards to protect us."
Connor eyed the nordic witch. "What do you plan to do?"
She closed her eyes, drawing in the scents of the forest, feeling the life about her, and lifted her wand. "A kinetic shield, a life ward, and a primal barrier..." She frowned. "If I can cast them all before they get here."
Connor nodded. "Will it block our own spells?"
Shaking her head slightly, she began to trace out the ring with her wand as she walked daywise. "No."
Lee moved as only a master of correspondence could, each of her steps taking her further than a man at a full run. Her movements folded the fabric of space, allowing her to step from fold to fold instead of traversing the entire distance between. She arrived along the road, a good fifteen minute's walk from the ring, and listened. The car was approaching. Taking a stance in the road, she began twisting space. Each of her sweeping, circular motions looked like nothing more than a slow, deliberate dance, yet beneath her feet, she felt the earth sliding aside, spreading across the road in all directions as a fine dust. She moved backward, each sweeping motion spreading the dust across the area, removing the asphalt's foundation as one would scoop out a melon, leaving only the brittle black shell behind.
The pursuers' car rounded the bend and she saw them as they saw her. The engine revved as the car launched forward, intent upon running her down before she could dodge away. Yet, as the car sped over the asphalt shell, the road cracked, shattering like brittle pottery handled without care. Lee leapt as the fractures reached her, leaving the ground an instant before it crumbled and fell into the hidden crater. As she soared up and backward, flipping gracefully at her zenith, she heard the sound of devastating impact as the machine slammed into the closer wall of the crater. Earth won. Landing as lightly as a cat, Lee leapt again, vanishing into the trees like a leaf carried on the wind.
Connor's head came up as the sound of impact and twisted metal reached the clearing. "Sounds like Lee is busy."
Willa finished the her third time around the ring, the air wavering along the surface of the half sphere of power which separated them from the outer world. "I hope that indicates she's doing well."
Lee watched the car and the occupants as the dust and smoke cleared. The driver and passenger had already disengaged their seatbelts. The one in burgundy twisted to grab something from the back floorboards as the one in grey smashed out the side window and climbed out. They moved as if they'd been injured, but were by no means incapacitated. Lee frowned. That wasn't good.
The man in the burgundy trench coat leapt, soaring up from the hood of the car and landing on solid asphalt beyond the edge of the crater. The grey simply moved to the wall of the crater and began climbing, something he shouldn't have been able to do in such loose and unstable dirt, yet he climbed as if he were on a climbing walls with hand holds. As the second man ascended beyond the crater's edge, the first set down a leather case and opened the top. Reaching inside, he pulled out a tommy-gun with eldrich symbols inscribed into the stock, cartridge and barrel.
Lee passed her hand before her eyes, opening her primal sight, and gazed at the men. The barely perceivable symbols embroidered into their clothes shone like liquid fire to her primal sight. Not only did the clothing move as if there were sections of stiffer, thicker materials, but it enwrapped them in magick.
Even the tortoise has his soft points, Lee mused, silently slipping from the branches and picking up a stone from the forest floor. With a deft spin, she hurled the stone at the agent in grey. The agent turned, his arm swinging to deflect the stone, but her pitch was a fraction faster than the agent and the stone struck his skull. Against any normal man, that would have been a killing blow, and it did send the agent to the ground, but Lee could see him shaking his head as he struggled to rise.
Damn! That will complicate matters.
The burgundy agent flipped up a brass crosshair sight on his gun and turned looking through it as if he believed he could spot her within the foliage. He fired. Lee slid sideways and down just enough for the round to impact the tree behind her instead of hitting her. The tree trunk exploded as the incendiary round splinter and vaporized the wood.
Lee tried to fold space and step away from the men, but her concentration faltered and she only managed to slip away before he could fire a second round.
Willa jerked at the sound of gunfire and explosions. The carefully crafted ward-layer wobbled and collapsed. "Damn!" She cursed herself before gathering her thoughts and focusing on the task. She still had two layers to build, and the enemy was not far off.
Connor finished coating and reloading his bullets into the clips. He wondered where Liam had gone. Had the man left them to fend for themselves, or was he really gathering reinforcements?
By the time the burgundy and grey men had made it to the parking lot, they no longer limped or moved in any way which would indicate injury or discomfort. Lee narrowed her eyes, concentrating upon their garments again. Were there fewer glowing sigils than before? She wasn't sure, but it was possible. If so, then their abilities were available in finite quantities, and that was something she could exploit.
The men climbed the path towards the clearing, and noted the man and woman within the eldrich shield at the center of the clearing. They stopped on the path, scanning the area.
"Who are you?" Willa called. "We don't want to fight you."
The burgundy clad man answered in an almost bored tone. "We want the freak. Do not interfere."
"Not a good start," Connor grumbled, flexing his fingers on his gun.
Willa frowned at him, but said nothing.
At that moment, another stone came careening in from the woods, but the instant it cleared the trees the burgundy clad man spun and blew the stone to powder in a single, devastating shot. The grey man crouched simultaneously to the burgundy's spin, his grey great coat shifting into something like a hybrid of a second skin and articulated, bladed armor. In a blur, he launched into the woods.
Lee leapt a second before the grey slashed through the space she'd occupied. Spinning as she ascended, she struck down with her staff, ramming it through his ankle and twisted as she descended, snapping the man's lower leg just above the ankle.
The crack of bone and scream concussed the clearing as Connor leveled his gun at the agent's weapon. Got to stop that thing, he thought. He let the dice rattle in his off hand, his mind opening to the probabilities as he pulled the trigger. The bullet passed through the barrier without hindrance and slammed into the circular cartridge of the incendiary tommy-gun. Despite his hope, the gun did not explode.
Shit, he thought, as burgundy spun back and fired off his first shot at Connor. Even knowing exactly where the round would hit, Connor would normally have no chance of evading it, but Willa's kinetic shield changed the odds. As the incendiary round passed through the outer sphere, it slowed, beginning to yield to gravity far faster than it would have otherwise. Connor stepped back, turning his body just enough for the round to slip passed him without impact. The round continued out of the ring and exploded as it hit the ground twenty feet beyond.
Willa lifted her wand, focusing on the energy she could feel coursing through the burgundy man's nervous system. With a widdershinds swirl of her wand, she tried to slow the impulses, delaying the signals and responses. The man pulled the trigger again, but Willa was certain he should have been able to get off two or three shots by then. The gun clicked, the next round refusing to enter the chamber. The man swore, and began to release the gun, in order to free his hands for other weapons.
Lee watched in dismay as the grey man's leg began mending instantly, the bone reforming and aligning while the flesh knit together in a flare of primal power. She didn't wait for the healing to finish, but launched from the wood, leapt over the burgundy man and landed at the far side, her staff ready for the next assault.
The grey spun on one foot as the other leg continued to heal, and his muscles bunched within the coat-armor. In moments he launched himself at Lee again.
As the grey launched, Connor fired again, hitting the burgundy's gun hand, blowing it nearly apart, shattering the bones, leaving the fingers without structure against which to flex. Willa concentrated on her spell, tightening her hold upon the man's nervous system, dialing it back, dimming his responses, slowing him further.
Lee ducked, bringing her staff up to catch the grey in the pelvis and propel him over her and face first into the ground. As she launched upward, she drove her staff down again, but the grey slid aside, and as her staff hit ground he hooked his ankle about the staff, locking it in place. Lee spun, refusing to let go of her staff, and used her redirected momentum to torque the staff, causing the grey's knee to snap.
Connor fired again, his bullet separating the pinky and ring finger from the burgundy's off hand while Willa slowed burgundy's responses further, sweat drenching her clothes from the mystical exertion. If they could keep burgundy from healing or obtaining another weapon, they could win the fight.
Mushu materialized about Lee's staff, his eyes wide with fascination. "Well, this is interesting!"
Lee knew the little dragon was not referring to the physical combat. She paused, allowing her sight to expand to the etheric, and her eyes went wide as well. The world about them shifted, as if the colors had been muted and the sounds muffled. It felt as if the very ground had slid out from under them, yet there was no movement at all.
Willa and Connor blinked, realizing the scene had changed. They were still in the clearing, but beyond the oddly desaturated color of the scene, they were surrounded by a dozen or more beasts ranging from six to eight feet tall, all some hybrid of man and wolf, and all looking displeased. Walking what seemed to be the perimeter of both the shifted space and the clearing was Liam. He chanted/sung to himself, paying no heed to the activities within the clearing. The smoke from his incense burner rose like faerie motes of silver light, thinning the veil between the worlds.
Lee stepped forward now, facing the two men. "Why am I a freak?" she asked in a level tone. Neither of the men even looked at her. "They will not hear me. I need a voice. Who will speak for me?"
Conner gripped his dice and leveled his firearm while Willa steadied herself after the sudden change. Willa looked in amazement at the beings surrounding them. "I think that's a task best left to Liam. He seems to have an idea of what's going on here."
The grey took in the situation, seemingly unphased by the slip from the physical world into the boundary between body and spirit. With a slash at the air, the grey sliced through the remaining veil and plunged into the deeper umbra. Three of the garou followed, but the rest remained.
The burgundy looked about, slowly, Willa's magicks preventing any rapid responses to his surroundings. Bringing the stump of his off hand to his chest, he deliberately spread blood across the symbols on his torso, and all the magicks of his enchanted garments erupted. The explosion blew apart Liam's bubble of synergy, and tore through Willa's wards. Everyone was knocked to the ground, with injuries ranging from bruising to fearful burns depending upon their proximity to the epicenter.
Willa clambered up and ran for Lee, who, despite her amazing skills, had been knocked across the clearing by the blast. "Let me help you."
Lee pushed herself up. "I am alright."
Frowning, Willa refused to be dismissed, "This is what I do, I heal people."
"All right." Lee straightened while Willa went back for her kit. Lee turned to the tall, alien forms. "I have no claim upon you. I thank you." She made a deep, formal bow to them.
Liam stood up, checking to make sure his incense burner had not been harmed, then carefully tucked it away before speaking to the fading images of the garou. "Thank you, my brothers."
The werewolves nodded and disappeared into the spirit paths.
Connor brushed himself off, glad that Willa's wards had absorbed the majority of the explosion before collapsing. "Doesn't look like he left enough of himself to get a DNA trace."
Liam frowned. "Death over capture, and spells prepared to destroy anything we could use to divine any information..." He shook his head. "That's disturbing."
"Very," Connor agreed.
Willa finished tending to Lee's most serious wounds before standing and looking back at the men. "What now?"
"We can't get onto the mansion grounds in broad daylight, with police and firemen there," Connor observed.
"I am not comfortable trying to wend our way back through the spirit paths to the mansion... I suspect there are spirit barriers there, or worse, which have trapped the spirits who normally accompany Lee." Liam looked at the akashic nun as she approached. "I did understand that correctly from your memories, yes?"
She nodded. "Yes. Mushu knows nothing except they did not emerge from the mansion with us." She looked at the semi-corporeal dragon wrapped about the upper length of her staff. "I will not send him to investigate."
"We don't want to let too much time pass. Any traces we could find will be obliterated by all the activity, if not by whoever launched the attack." Connor pondered the problem as Liam shouldered his pack and Willa tucked away her supplies. "Think we can get in there tonight?"
Liam looked at Lee and Willa, both of whom nodded. "After moon rise I think..."
"We can return to the house until then, recharge, eat, rest, and maybe my mother or Grams will know something more than we do," Willa said, closing up her pack and hefting it onto her shoulder. "I hope they didn't damage the subaru.
Lee shook her head. "They walked passed the cars. I do not think they noticed them."
Connor frowned again. "We should probably check before getting in them... just to be sure..."
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