World On Fire: Operation Pathfinder

[Rupudska]

Sophie clicked her tongue and pointed her cigar at the teenage maga, greeting her with a smile: "Miss Esther Rothenberg, I believe? I'm Sophie Dulac. I saw you in Prague in 1938, although you probably didn't notice me." She continued, her smile turning into a sideways grin that the younger maga would interpret however she wanted: "I was ... part of an audience. You were most impressive."

Esther did indeed grant Sophie a reply, though she didn't give one right away. Who is this... ah. Prague, 1938. THAT Prague 1938. A few more moments passed trying to decide whether or not Sophie would turn her in for partaking not only in the illegal act of golem fighting, not only in the doubly-illegal act of betting on the outcomes of golem fighting, but the triply-illegal act of betting on the outcome of a golem-fighting world championship.

She lost a lot of money that night.

"Well, thank you kindly," she said, allowing her Texan accent to take prevalence over the smattering of New Yorker inside her - she never much liked the New York accent, and had thus far been highly successful in eliminating it. "Sadly I didn't win that night, but I plan to win the next one."

If there even IS a next one, she thought grimly. If the rumors of what Hitler (and Stalin) were doing were true, there might not be enough Jews to have such a championship in a few years.

[Nature-Spirits]

"Good Morning, Is nice, da?" He asked the woman, putting his hands in his pockets, "I is -" he paused and thought of the others speaking. "I aaam Anatoly Bellinkov, but many people speak to me as Anatoly. I am of hope that we make goodest team. Da?"

Adrienne looked up from her cloth-bound bundle when she heard the Russian's voice coming from very close by, and suddenly realised that he was standing much nearer to her than he had been before. And he appeared to be speaking to her. Anatoly Bellinkov, eh? I suppose I will now be expected to introduce myself to him in return, she thought as she stared at him for a few moments. She was loath to give out her name -- after all, names held power, as every half-decent witch knew.

She was much more than half-decent.

However, she did suppose that her name would be revealed to everyone in the room at some point anyway -- after all, she would be working alongside them -- so she supposed that there was likely no harm in introducing herself to this boy. After a few more moments of contemplation, she smiled at him. "I am called Adrienne Lapierre," she said, a thick French accent tingeing her speech. "Me also, I 'ope that our team will be effective." She gestured for him to sit, feeling somewhat uncomfortable looking up at him. "What think you of London?"

[Agritum]

"Wow, I believe that's Elizabeth Bathory's fifth blood-cousin once removed there, Abraham! And look, twin grey werewolves! That's pretty rare, if I recall well. And then, there's mages, and foreign witches! I never saw robes like that! Mh, I guess that's Ariel Remington. Have you ever heard about her? She was continuosly on honour rolls back in the academy. Too bad I never Then there's the Americans, they're so weird. And Soviets!" Elektra Van Helsing whispered ecstatically, continously looking back from her couch like a child at a zoo. "And they're also throwing the word "Kraut" around a bit too lightly, uh."

Abraham eyed the rising tensions in the room a bit nervously, before motioning Elektra to quiet down a little. "Elektra, did you see what those two girls can do? They just smashed through a reinforced elevator door, servomotors included. It's better if you keep your musing silent, or at least quiet enough for them not to hear. Plus, I get the feel that the Countess there and that other wolf near the bookshelf won't take it kindly to the excessively...curious looks you're giving to them." he admonished, but with a calm tone. "And they're definitely not referring to you when they say 'Kraut'."

"Fine then...." Elektra said, grudgingly.

Abraham sighed. His soon-to-be colleagues remembered him too much of some his felllow researchers back at the Academy. Brilliant, but quirky, lazy or downright dysfunctional. It was almost as if Allied High Command had specifically selected for all those traits, in addition to racial and national rivalries, to build the team. Probably they were pretty good at doing the job, killing Nazis and killing the monsters who accompanied them, but they were equally capable of doing the same to their fellow teammates. Only the two magas, the Minuteman, the two mundane American troopers, the Australian werewolf and the witches looked sane enough to able to discuss things in a less heated manner, but Abraham couldn't really be sure that they weren't completely unhinged. Abraham silently thanked God for saving Elektra from frontline duty.

"Oh...may He have mercy for us all." the young man muttered.

---

Abraham wasn't the only one in the room who had been unsettled by the rather lively, confrontational demeanour adopted by its inhabitants. At the first sign of the elevator door being bashed in Christopher had unholstered his service revolver, charged with blessed silver bullets, only to be stopped in his intent of busting a cap in the head of the unknown assailants by M's timely action.

"Stop." He commanded, "I will deal with it personally, Lee. At rest."

"Yes sir..." Lee replied, cautiously holstering the revolver again, but keeping his fingers ready for anything.

With one swift motion, M put out the premium executive cigar he was smoking on. The roll of tobacco found an unglorious death, its head brutally smashed into the jet black glass ashtray on M's desk, the flame of its life extinguished by the angry caprice of its master. Just like many others before, the cigar gave out its last fumes, and sat dead, vanquished.

M stood up in the dark, and clapped his hands two times. The dim lights suddenly intensified in strenght, and blue flames lit the candles of an hidden grand chandelier dangling over the heads of the novice commandos. Lee stared at the scene with an impassible look.

M was now visible to everyone.

M was a dignified, groomed man in his thirties, but he also bore the signs of sleepless nights on his eyes, and possessed the noticeably harshened voice of the chain smoker. Unlike Lee, his outfit consisted in a refined Saville Row suit, which contrasted with the stern, used look of his owner. Even then, there was something deeply fascinating about him, buried under the tired look of a busy mission planner. His eyes still sparkled with inventive and a certain outspokenness.

"Ladies, gentlemen, order please. Now sit down." he addressed the crowd, while clicking a button on his desk. Hidden gears started clanking and getting to work. "I am Lieutenant Commander Fleming of the British Navy, and Head Mission Planner, Agent Handler and Executive Manager of the joint Allied special task force known as Shadow Command, or SHADOCOM. My duty is to set, monitor and ensure the success of the mission goals which you will undertake."

An high-end cinema project appeared on the other side of the room, ascending from fake flooring, while a blank screen unravelled behind M. The projector was quickly put into action, displaying a map overview of Northern Africa, almost taken over by a black tide with a white swastika, representing Axis territorial gains in the zone. M clicked again, and the projectir advanced to a different slide, showing several stylized Boogeyman logos dotting the map. The slide would then progress, showing the names of various setbacks and defeats, right next to the Boogeymen.

"This map's purpose is to show the crucial position the Shadow Ops teams have as a part of the Allied struggle. After the near disasters of '41, their contribution was priceless. Several sabotages, strategical skirmishes and assassinations helped in hindering the Axis war effort, as did a sizeable number of succesful attempts at thwarting German occult plots."

M glanced at everyone in the room. "Ladies and Gentlemen, today you become part of the finest occult and anti-occult fighting force in our coalition, one of our most formidable weapons in such a dire time. You will undertake important missions aimed at safeguarding Allied military interests and supporting the campaigns of the conventional military".

While he made a good valiant impression, it was pretty clear that M was quite flustered by the lateness of other scheduled guests. Crowley was probably not showing up, and he could count at least a few Soviets and vampires who had apparenly taken it easy. He switched to another slide, which detailed the variety of species, races, nationalities and creeds that were represented in SHADOCOM. It was almost bland in comparison to what could be seen in the HQ itself."

"But before I'll detail your first assignment, gentlemen, I'd like to invite questions about the organization, the structure of the squads and of the HQ, and your role here. I'll respond to them to the maximum of my possibilities. Remember to state your name, ranks if any, and specialty."

"C'mon Abraham, raise your hand, blimey!"

Abraham did so, giving an unsure look at Elektra and trembling for a few seconds. "Uh...Abraham Van Helsing II here. I'm a cryptobiologist, supernatural history expert and...uh, vampire hunter. I'd like to know, what will our work entail?"

"Anything and everything, Mister Helsing." M replied, with a wry smile, "but you'll be usually dispatched to prevent Nazi tampering with important occult assets, aid important Allied operations with your supernatural expertise, and even bring damage to the heart of the Axis itself. It will be frontline work, in you case."

"And mine? Ah, right. Elektra Van Helsing, Registered Albion Lodge Maga, Expert in Gate Magic and derivatives."

"Oh, Miss Helsing. Well, my purview is not HQ work, so I can't exactly point out what your duty will be. I'd hazard saying that it's probably related to the mantainment of thaumaturgic assets in SHADOCOM property and in the HQ."

"Well, better than nothing." Elektra whispered, a bit disappointed."

"Next?" asked M.

[Monfrox]

Willow slowly came to realize just what the SOE had gotten her into. The rumors she heard from those operatives she spent almost a year in France with were true. It was a good thing she had came a bit prepared. Nothing too serious, though. Her turtleneck hid a crucifix on her necklace where her dog tags used to be, and she had been able to get into contact with one of her friends back home who had also joined up with the RAF and work something out before she came back. She said: "Think of it as your birthday present!" when she gave it to her. It was a Stiletto switchblade, but the blade was made of pure silver. Though she couldn't think of anything that would help against the other kinds of Occult, she was at least somewhat protected from vampires and werewolves.

And for good reason. After that sinister looking man came over and talked about how people tasted depending on their nationality, she was fingering that stiletto in her pocket before taking it out and putting it on the chair next to her leg. She didn't want to have to use it, but she was getting unsettled and this "Markus" guy wasn't helping it. Surely this meeting would get underway soon as she found herself having a permanent expression of disgust on her face. This unit was going to work together? Sure, maybe after they finished sorting out the pecking order with a battle royale. Shit, she'd rather be back in France right now if this was the case.

It wasn't until their CO appeared (from what seemed like thin air) that she seemed a bit more at ease, allowing her to put the knife away. She leaned her chair back as much as she could before she just kicked herself away from the table in an effort to see around the Minuteman sitting in the way. North Africa, eh? Why would anyone want to go there? It didn't make sense. Nothing there was of strategic value unless you counted the oil, but still even that wasn't as much. Hitler sure was hellbent on total world domination, then. Then it was question time, but she really didn't feel like stating full name. She spoke in that same low female tone she had been born with.

"Barnes. Pilot from the RAF Eagle squadron -" And from that point, her somewhat professional attitude went south as she grinned a bit too much when she spoke with her excited tone. "- When do I get to blow stuff up?"

Really, it was all she cared about. Who's day could she ruin with a pound of Composition B? Who's precious tank could she send the turret flying off with a well-placed satchel charge? Who's bunker could she remodel with a few bundles of dynamite? It was a simple question for a simple pastime. It was no wonder her father prohibited the buying of fireworks on the 4th of July for her.

[Malshan]

Markus reluctantly sat when the man known as 'M' asked that they do so. His instincts rebelled against the action, demanding that the man prove his right to command, but the few scraps of humanity in him restrained the violent temperament with the promise of blood in the future. After all, it WAS a war they were going to be fighting in.

The aged wolf sighed as 'M' continued speaking, finding the whole affair a bit boring. There was a reason he never rose to a position of command during the last Great War, other than his particular dietary preferences, of course. Meetings and strategy were never a source of interest for him. The only reason he had participated at all was to exercise his fighting ability and to have the potential for a full release into his primal state. The allure of fresh meat without the threat of domestic Hunters was simply too much to pass up.

Markus stood slowly after 'M' finished speaking, clasping his hands in front of him and cocking his head slightly. "I'm sure y'are an able commander an' all that, The details on who y'are are ultimately unimportant." He looked around, licking his canines with an expression of growing interest upon his face. "Ya say we're gonna to work as a team, yeah? See, I may na speak for the rest of us, but I get the impression that some of us don't play well wit' others."

He paused, then chuckled. "Mahself included. 'Course, you already knew that. I'm sure you got a detailed list of everything any o us have ever done in our lives."

"I'm with that lil' girl over there in terms o sentiments. The one with the cursed silver blade." He paused, turning to look at Willow. "That silver blade stinks to high heaven." He turned back to 'M'. "Ya organization means nothing to me. So I'm sure you'll understand where I'm comin' from when I ask...when is dinner?"

"And what's a bit more important here is...what types of folks we be killing? I like human targets, mahself."

[Latznavia]

Briefing Room, Baker Street - April 27, 1942

Anatoly smiled at the young Adrienne, however before he could respond, his attention was drawn to the sudden intensifying of the twin desk lamps by the mysterious M and his identity was revealed, it was unfortunate because his name was not known amongst Soviet forces and thus he had no idea who this 'Fleming' man was. But he did as he was told, which made him the ideal Red Army Soldier without question, and sat in the empty chair next to Adrienne and remained silent. The room went Black and the projector began, the whirling of the reels and the flickering of the screen revealed the Nazi horde. He felt the anger well up, almost ignoring the voice, but he tried to follow every word. When the lights came on, and M spoke up, Anatoly was full of questions and raised his hand to ask, but Barnes stood up in front of him.

"Barnes. Pilot from the RAF Eagle squadron -" She began, then seemed to clear her throat. Then a smile seemed to take over, "- When do I get to blow stuff up?". Anatoly seemed surprised by this as he waited for M to ask, when Markus stood up, the filthy greymuzzle.

"I'm sure y'are an able commander an' all that, The details on who y'are are ultimately unimportant." Anatoly hadn't seen or even heard of questioning a commanding officer. "What's a bit more important here is...what types of folks we be killing? I like human targets, mahself." Anatoly was ready to ask now, his compatriots got their words and he stood up and cleared his throat, he thought clearly and made a sentence in his mind from the various words of the others and opened his mouth to speak.

"Mister Fleming." He began, his broken English seemingly vanishing, "I am Anatoly Bellinkov, 104th Infantry Red Army. I was in service at both Minsk. I am becoming curious of our first assault." His naivity became an aura of military training and excellence. "What is my position, I am becoming nervous due to my national homeland that favor have been selected towards more...Western nations then myself. If this is to be so, I will leave." He said in a parade rest stance.

[Cylarn]

It was time once more for everyone to introduce themselves, but their commander - M - was opening up for questions. Once more, Clark wondered if there had been some sort of clerical error. He wasn't capable of much beyond that of a common soldier, at least he thought so. Everyone else was asking questions, and identifying themselves. Clark shrugged, and decided that it'd be pertinent to ask why he was in the unit. SHADOCOM was a unit dedicated to fighting the occult arsenal of Nazi Germany with a similar occult arsenal, one that Clark had no idea even existed until a few days ago. Had he been younger and not possessed the ability to keep a level head, he would have probably lost it, having seen more of the occult world in five minutes than he truly cared to see.

The officer stood up, and looked the Lieutenant Commander directly in the eyes.

"Captain Clark Harris, US Army and/or OSS," he said. "FDR said I'm here because of my record in Spain, of which I'm sure they threw my ass in the Rock for, and which is not as special as people think it is. Look sir, I have no magical powers of whatever; I'm not sure why anyone would think it was a good idea to throw humble me at Hitler's army of storybook monsters. I'll fight them because it's right, but why me for this special outfit? Like I said, I'm no better than the next GI."

[Reverend Norv]

1040 Hours
27 April 1942
Shadow Command Headquarters, Baker Street, London
United Kingdom

As Matt helped the young Soviet soldier back to his feet, Markus commenced to soliloquize on the different tastes of people of different nationalities. Americans were greasy, apparently; Russians tasted like snowcones. The werewolf gave Anatoly a toothy smile. Matt quietly stepped between Markus and Anatoly. The Minuteman's gaze was steady, monitoring Markus' hips and shoulders for the warning signs of sudden motion.

The werewolf kept talking. Apparently, Markus had signed a contract pledging not to eat his teammates. Matt found that fact imperfectly comforting. "The key thing about werewolves," Markus concluded, "is that if the beast is not satiated, then the beast will satiate itself."

That's a threat, Matt thought. Give me Nazis to eat, or I might eat you - "the beast will satiate itself." If Matt had harbored doubts about the greymuzzle before, now those misgivings hardened into actual anger. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the woman in the grey dress; she grimaced as if in physical pain, and glanced at the rifle-sized bundle at her feet. Anatoly scurried off, all but trembling, muttering under his breath about dogs and muzzles.

This is not a sustainable dynamic.

The Minuteman turned, planted his feet, and looked Markus straight in the eye. "You've said enough." Matt's voice was usually a deep, rolling bass; now it was flat and hard. "You have no right to threaten anyone in this room. You have no right to sicken us with your ranting. And until you've earned our respect, no one here will accord you the privilege of being feared." Matt's crystal-blue gaze was steady, unblinking. "Pick a side, Markus. There are no loners anymore."

Without waiting for a reply, Matt turned his back - a challenge, an invitation - and walked to his chair. On the way there, he passed a young woman who hurried into the briefing room. She wore a dark brown British uniform and a red beret; her blonde hair was tied up in a bun. "Sorry I'm late!" the girl cried; her accent was pure upper-class British, and Matt thought of verandahs in the Burmese jungle, tropical suits and gin and tonics and Shan servants. A white dove sat on the girl's shoulder; Matt remembered the butterfly on the shoulder of the quiet woman in the grey dress, and thought: a witch.

After a moment, another girl entered the room. If Matt had thought that Esther Rosenberg was too young for war, he found himself horrified at appearance of this new arrival: she was a true child, barely into her teens, not yet old enough for high school. Her hair was pure white, like Anatoly's, and her eyes were red. She dragged one leg behind her like a stick of dead wood, and walked slowly with a cane. She wore British-style uniform. Military uniform. Matt felt a surge of nausea.

The kid made it, silently, to a chair. She struggled to sit, balancing precariously on her cane and her good leg, trying not to fall over. Before he was fully aware of his actions, Matt had crossed the room yet again. He dropped down onto one knee; his head was still level with the child's, though she stood upright. With a small, silent smile of reassurance, Matt placed his massive hands on the girl's shoulders and gently supported her as she sat down, making sure that she didn't lose her balance. Without a word, Matt rose again and returned to his own seat.

Snippets of conversation reached the Minuteman's ears as he walked across the room. Esther Rosenberg replied to Sophie Dulac; the girl's voice held a faint Texas twang. From her response, it was clear that there had been some kind of competition in Prague, in which Esther had participated and which Sophie had witnessed. Neither woman seemed prepared to explain openly what had happened. There's no trust here, Matt thought. And that is going to become a problem.

Anatoly, meanwhile, was introducing himself to the witch in the grey dress. His English was broken, his tone sincere and guileless. After a moment's hesitation, the woman replied in a thick French accent. Her name, Matt gathered, was Adrienne Lapierre. French, or maybe French Canadian. Matt had taught himself French in the Burmese jungle, from a leather-bound collection of Moliere and a tattered paperback copy of Candide.

He loved the language. He had no confidence whatsoever in his accent. He said nothing.

* * *

Flame flared up and died in the corner of Matt's vision; M had ground out his cigar. Something's about to happen, Matt decided, and he swiftly returned to his chair. Behind the big mahogany desk, M stood, and clapped his hands twice. Blue fire burst into life above Matt's head, illuminating a giant chandelier. Matt didn't flinch, but his gaze did snap upward, and one of his hands balled into a fist. The fist was about the size and weight of the head of a sledgehammer.

The light from the chandelier revealed M at last. He was a patrician-looking man perhaps ten years older than Matt, clad in a tailored suit. Bags sagged beneath his eyes, but the eyes themselves seemed to twinkle. M called the meeting to order; Matt saw Markus reluctantly squeeze himself into a chair.

"I am Lieutenant Commander Fleming of the British Navy," the man behind the desk announced, "and Head Mission Planner, Agent Handler and Executive Manager of the joint Allied special task force known as Shadow Command, or SHADOCOM." Fleming's voice was rough, almost hoarse; Matt wondered how many of those fancy cigars he went through in a day.

Fleming fiddled with some buttons on his desk, and a cinema projector rose from the floor and began shining its beam onto a screen behind Fleming's desk. The image showed a black tide, marked with swastikas, advancing across North Africa. Matt thought of Nanking, and said nothing. Fleming fiddled some more, and now symbols dotted the map, each marking an Allied defeat. Fleming talked about the importance of the Shadow Ops teams to the Allied struggle. Matt wondered how many people were living under that great black blob. Fleming concluded his briefing, and invited questions.

The first queries came from the two redheaded siblings; the sister prodded the brother into action. "Uh...Abraham Van Helsing II here," the young man announced. Matt's eyebrows rose. Van Helsing as in...Dracula? he wondered. Jannie will love this.

"I'm a cryptobiologist, supernatural history expert and...uh, vampire hunter," Abraham continued. "I'd like to know, what will our work entail?"

Fleming smiled wryly. "Anything and everything, Mister Helsing. But you'll be usually dispatched to prevent Nazi tampering with important occult assets, aid important Allied operations with your supernatural expertise, and even bring damage to the heart of the Axis itself. It will be frontline work, in your case."

That doesn't narrow the field at all, Matt thought. But he held his peace.

Abraham's sister introduced herself: she was named Elektra, a British maga who specialized in something called "Gate Magic." She asked about her role. Fleming explained that it had something to do with a field called thaumaturgy. Matt gathered that it was desk work of some kind. Elektra seemed disappointed.

The young woman in black military gear, who had fallen out of her chair when the Thompson twins destroyed the elevator door, was the next to speak. "Barnes," she announced by way of introduction. "Pilot from the RAF Eagle squadron." Matt was again struck by the girl's low contralto, and impressed by her dedication. She's been in this since before Pearl Harbor. Barnes grinned broadly. "When do I get to blow stuff up?"

Well, that explains it, Matt concluded.

And then, of course, Markus had to have his say.

"I'm sure y'are an able commander an' all that," the werewolf drawled dismissively. "The details on who y'are are ultimately unimportant. Ya say we're gonna to work as a team, yeah? See, I may na speak for the rest of us, but I get the impression that some of us don't play well wit' others." Markus chuckled. "Mahself included. 'Course, you already knew that. I'm sure you got a detailed list of everything any o us have ever done in our lives."

The greymuzzle turned to Barnes. "I'm with that lil' girl over there in terms o sentiments. The one with the cursed silver blade. That silver blade stinks to high heaven." Matt's eyebrows raised slightly; packing a silver knife was good preparation on Barnes' part. Markus turned back to Fleming. "Ya organization means nothing to me. So I'm sure you'll understand where I'm comin' from when I ask...when is dinner? And what's a bit more important here is...what types of folks we be killing? I like human targets, mahself."

Matt's sledgehammer-sized fist gently rapped the wooden arm of his chair. So that's how it's going to be. But it was Fleming's briefing, and the Minuteman Project had impressed just enough of the soldier's mentality upon Matt that Matt could respect Fleming's authority. The American held his peace, at least for the time being.

Anatoly stood up and cleared his throat; Matt could see the gears working behind the young man's eyes as he planned his question, and then the Russian snapped to what looked like a parade rest, and he spoke. "Mister Fleming. I am Anatoly Bellinkov, 104th Infantry Red Army. I was in service at both Minsk and Stalingrad. I am becoming curious of our first assault. What is my position, I am becoming nervous due to my national homeland that favor have been selected towards more...Western nations then myself. If this is to be so, I will leave."

Clark was next. He stood, met Fleming's eyes, and declared: "Captain Clark Harris, US Army and/or OSS. FDR said I'm here because of my record in Spain, of which I'm sure they threw my ass in the Rock for, and which is not as special as people think it is." Matt somehow doubted that last assertion. "Look, sir," Clark continued, "I have no magical powers or whatever; I'm not sure why anyone would think it was a good idea to throw humble me at Hitler's army of storybook monsters. I'll fight them because it's right, but why me for this special outfit? Like I said, I'm no better than the next GI."

Matt spoke quietly, from behind Clark, without rising from his chair. "I think you may have answered your own question, captain." The Minuteman's deep voice was thoughtful. "You're ready and willing to go up against Hitler's army of storybook monsters, without any magical powers, simply because it's the right thing to do. This is a special outfit, and that sounds pretty d-" - Matt couldn't quite bring himself to swear for dramatic effect, not even among soldiers - "pretty darn special to me."

Matt stood slowly. "I'm Matthew Beecher, captain, United States Army. Minuteman Project. And I can't speak for our commander, but I expect that each and every one of us was chosen for this team individually, and for good reason. That includes you, Captain Harris. And you, Mister Bellinkov." Matt gave Anatoly a lopsided grin. "I figure that if we didn't want you here, we'd just have let Markus eat you. You're still standing, which means that we need you on our side. I hope that you stay."

"As for my question," Matt continued, "it is this. I'll be blunt: I don't want to deny anyone the chance to defend the free world. And I recognize that we need every talented fighter we can get. I know that women are fighting in combat on the Eastern Front, and I can accept the fact that women make up half of this team."

Matt took a deep breath. "But at least half a dozen of the people in this room aren't old enough to vote, and a couple may not be old enough to drive. If we start throwing children into battle, we are debasing ourselves to the level of the Nazis and the Japanese. It's not right. It dishonors the flags we fight under, and it betrays the principles that we claim to defend." Matt squared his shoulders. "So I'd like to know what the military status of the children in this room is. I'd like to know just how desperate we are, and just how far we're prepared to go in order to win this war."

[Wolfenium]

Twiddling her thumbs as she watched the members identfy themselves one by one, the blonde could not but feel some of the characters in her company are a lot more of a liability than she expected. Markus, especially, came across as nothing but an animal. A rather ironic term, considering he had apparently given in to his lupine instincts completely. Miss Barnes, similar, was not much better in that regard, though her enthusiasm for explosive material was actually something Ariel herself shared. The rest though, were far more normal by comparison. Captain Matt, for one, appeared the straight up model West Point graduate, someone she hoped could provide a hand with managing the less ruly flock among them.

But not everyone liked the upright Yank, not the least the cripple he helped on the chair.

Matt took a deep breath. "But at least half a dozen of the people in this room aren't old enough to vote, and a couple may not be old enough to drive. If we start throwing children into battle, we are debasing ourselves to the level of the Nazis and the Japanese. It's not right. It dishonors the flags we fight under, and it betrays the principles that we claim to defend." Matt squared his shoulders. "So I'd like to know what the military status of the children in this room is. I'd like to know just how desperate we are, and just how far we're prepared to go in order to win this war."

"Are you suggesting that I have been drafted into the King's Canadian armed forces against my will, regardless of my status as a minor," the child spoke coldly in surprisingly cultured English, though a light Slavic diction was betraying her identity, despite her efforts not to sound strange, "I appreciate the concern, but I scantly think I should be staying at home playing house when my powers could be used for greater things."

"Powers?..." Ariel blurted absentmindedly, "what kind? I can't sense any magic from you."

Shutting her eyes, the frail girl quietly stood to her seat with the cane supporting her. Combing her fringe as she addressed the room, she introduced herself, "Milena Rurikova Ponomarenko, Officer Cadet of His Royal Majesty's most loyal Canadian Army. Until a few months ago, no person in the Anglosphere could adequately classify me in terms of my powers' origins. But then our... friends from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics became exceptionally open to divulging their research on Kirlian Aura. So yes, you could say I'm an esper, though far from the same league as the 'mass production' types sent to aid us."

If there was one thing odd about Milena, it was that she was exceptionally crude for a girl with her age and physical disability. Far from a normal teenager, she sounded more like a sarcastic, middle aged countess, though it might simply be due to her education, or bitterness over her fragility. It did not take much for Ariel to think she was blueblood like herself. But she herself was a bit nervous to ask. She already made her mad with her stares earlier.

[Nature-Spirits]

As Adrienne spoke briefly with the Russian -- Anatoly -- she noticed a few more people filtering into the room; one, a young, white-haired, crippled girl, she vaguely recognised, but she did not have the time to attempt sorting through her memories to determine why and where from before the mysterious silhouette of a man behind the mahogany desk stood up and clapped his hands twice. Fire ignited in a chandelier above them and the dim lamps brightened, casting a glow over the room and revealing the man himself. Some kind of magus, perhaps? Or just a mundane man with magical things?

He was a well-groomed man, probably around Adrienne's own age, and appeared -- based on his introduction and accent -- to be British, though she had such little experience with Brits that she could not distinguish his accent beyond that. It seemed that he was in a high position of power in the military, and would be overseeing their work. He proceeded to summon a machine that projected an image onto a screen behind his desk, and after a few seconds -- Adrienne had never had much use for overseas geography -- she realised that it was a map of Northern Africa, displaying the Nazis' territory therein. Fleming pressed a button on a desk, and the swastikas were replaced by little symbols of some sort, followed by information, apparently pertaining to the military and regarding the locations on the map.

Fleming briefly explained what their role would be -- an "occult and anti-occult fighting force" working for the Allies -- then opened the floor to questions. First was one Abraham Van Helsing II. Adrienne raised her eyebrows ever so slightly, glancing at the vampire countess -- Jannie -- for an instant before returning her attention to the young vampire hunter. Apparently, he wanted to know more about what they would be expected to do -- something that the witch had been wondering herself. Fleming's answer was not totally satisfactory, but she supposed that it would have to do for now; they would apparently be given their assignment after the question period. The vampire hunter's sister, apparently named Elektra, asked about her duties next; apparently she would be doing work here. This is a very interesting -- if volatile -- setup, noted Adrienne. They have witches, magi, vampires, werewolves, and vampire hunters all working together, along with a few... she glanced at Matthew and the mundane folk, other types. I wonder how successful other teams have been. She furrowed her brow slightly. I sincerely hope we're not among the first such teams.

Next, the young American woman spoke up. Her name, apparently, was Barnes -- an unusual name, Adrienne thought, but then again, she was unfamiliar with the full spectrum of English names, so she supposed that she could not judge. When Barnes expressed a fervent desire to -- as she so tactfully put it -- "blow stuff up", Adrienne became slightly concerned, but quickly realised that she should not be so surprised. After all, this team was composed mostly of beings that could effortlessly kill the average human at the drop of a hat. It only made sense that the few mundane folk on the team would be atypical, she supposed.

When the dog, Markus, asked what kinds of people they would be targeting, Adrienne grimaced again. This beast was practically the embodiment of all she hated in the werewolf species, and his unrepentant sinfulness disturbed her somewhat. It deserves only to be exterminated.

Anatoly stood soon after, and Adrienne could see in the way he paused thoughtfully that he was constructing a proper English sentence in his mind before he spoke. "Mister Fleming. I am Anatoly Bellinkov, 104th Infantry Red Army. I was in service at Minsk. I am becoming curious of our first assault. What is my position, I am becoming nervous due to my national homeland that favor have been selected towards more...Western nations then myself. If this is to be so, I will leave." Hm. Honestly, Adrienne felt that she could sympathise with him somewhat. He clearly felt uncomfortable being surrounded by Westerners, without anyone else from his own country being on the team. It was an understandable concern, especially considering the language barrier and his country's controversial politics. That said, she did think that he was being a bit immature.

Then again, he was a man. Immaturity was to be expected.

Another American -- Clark -- spoke next, expressing concerns about his usefulness to the operations, considering his mundane status. Adrienne did agree that it was odd for there to be mundane people on an occult task force, but she supposed that Shadow Command must have had its reasons for appointing them, assuming that it was as competent an organisation as it seemed.

Matthew addressed Clark's concerns before Fleming could reply, his deep voice carrying a weight that almost commanded one to listen. The witch had to admit that she agreed with him. He was proving to be a reliably reasonable voice in this oddball group of people (and animals).

And then he posed a question, and Adrienne listened intently. "But at least half a dozen of the people in this room aren't old enough to vote, and a couple may not be old enough to drive. If we start throwing children into battle, we are debasing ourselves to the level of the Nazis and the Japanese. It's not right. It dishonors the flags we fight under, and it betrays the principles that we claim to defend. So I'd like to know what the military status of the children in this room is. I'd like to know just how desperate we are, and just how far we're prepared to go in order to win this war."

Adrienne chuckled quietly -- though loudly enough that she expected most of the room would have noticed -- just as the peculiar cripple spoke up in defence. As the young girl introduced herself, something clicked in Adrienne's mind. She had never met Milena in person, but she had heard of the young girl's case; after all, she had been the talk of the occult community of Canada for quite some time. The one who evaded classification. Not a witch, not a maga, not a vampire nor a werewolf, and most certainly not mundane. Interesting.

However, she was quickly brought back to her current situation, and she decided to more fully address Matthew's concerns. "I am called Adrienne Lapierre," she announced in her thick Québécois accent, "la Malédicteuse de Québec. I am a witch." She paused, looking calmly at Matthew, though there was a slight look of amusement in her eyes. "Matthew, while I understand your worries, you clearly do not understand the ways of our side of the Mascarade." She paused again, and her expression softened somewhat. "We are all weapons. We knew this when we inscribed ourselves to this job. And our world.... It is different than the one that the ordinary people know." Absentmindedly, she fingered her crucifix, and her eyes seemed to focus on something other than the present as she continued -- with a tinge of regret in her voice --, "We are innately capable of such violence and power that the child'ood is sometimes impossible. Sometimes, our nature necessitates the early maturation."

[Reverend Norv]

1046 Hours
27 April 1942
Shadow Command Headquarters, Baker Street, London
United Kingdom

Before Matt could even sit down, a child's thin voice spoke behind him: "Are you suggesting that I have been drafted into the King's Canadian armed forces against my will, regardless of my status as a minor?" Matt blinked, and turned, and saw that the voice belonged to the half-paralyzed girl whom Matt had helped to sit down. Her accent was English, upper-crust, but with a faint Slavic flavor to the vowels. "I appreciate the concern," the girl continued, "but I scantly think I should be staying at home playing house when my powers could be used for greater things."

For a moment, Matt was speechless. The girl had seemed so young when she struggled to her chair - and yet now she spoke with the bitter, sardonic self-assurance of an aging New York socialite. For a moment, Matt wondered if she could be a vampire. Maybe she's actually six hundred years old, or something like that. But no - the girl had said that she was a minor. She had to be as young as she looked.

Before Matt could reply, the blonde girl in British uniform exclaimed: "Powers?" Her accent was the definition of privilege. "What kind? I can't sense any magic from you."

The child struggled to her feet, and leaned on her cane with one hand; the other hand brushed her long white hair out of her eyes. "Milena Rurikova Ponomarenko," the girl announced, "Officer Cadet of His Royal Majesty's most loyal Canadian Army. Until a few months ago, no person in the Anglosphere could adequately classify me in terms of my powers' origins. But then our... friends from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics became exceptionally open to divulging their research on Kirlian Aura. So yes, you could say I'm an esper, though far from the same league as the 'mass production' types sent to aid us."

A Canadian esper. Matt wondered how that had happened. He cast a sidelong glance at Anatoly, curious to see the Russian's reaction to being called a mass-produced weapon.

But one imperative remained at the forefront of Matt's mind. I need to say something. But wrong-footed as he was by Milena's precocity, the American was no longer quite so sure of what to say.

In the end, he spread his hands, palms open, a carefully neutral gesture. "I'm not suggesting that you've been drafted, Cadet," Matt said quietly. His voice reverberated like a kettle drum struck by a muffled mallet. "And I don't doubt that your abilities are formidable. And I don't believe you should be at home playing house."

Matt raised his eyebrows. "But I do think that you should be in school. You're a child. Children deserve an education. They deserve a chance to develop under conditions of safety and affection. They deserve not to be thrown into the maelstrom of war." There was a measured cadence to Matt's words, like the rhythm of a preacher speaking from the pulpit. The Minuteman spread his hands. "If we're not fighting for the right of our children to live in peace, then what are we fighting for? What are we even doing here?"

In answer, Adrienne - the witch in the grey dress with the butterfly familiar - leaned forward. "I am called Adrienne Lapierre, la Malédicteuse de Québec. I am a witch." Matt mentally translated: Malédicteuse - a portmanteau word, feminine...someone who curses? Matt saw Adrienne's eyes upon him: steady, calm. Was there amusement flickering behind those eyes? Matt felt his ignorance press upon him like a blinding fog.

"Matthew," Adrienne explained, "while I understand your worries, you clearly do not understand the ways of our side of the Mascarade." The witch's expression softened, and she fingered her crucifix necklace. Matt saw some pain in her face: sadness, regret. "We are all weapons," Adrienne continued. "We knew this when we inscribed ourselves to this job. And our world.... It is different than the one that the ordinary people know. We are innately capable of such violence and power that the child'ood is sometimes impossible. Sometimes, our nature necessitates the early maturation."

Once, when Matt was very young, before the fever took his mother and almost killed Matt as well, Matthew Beecher had asked his father a question. His father had been gossiping with one of the village elders about the situation across the Chinese border. There had been fighting up in China, warlord armies clashing with each other and with the Kuomintang. Matt had listened attentively to the conversation, and afterwards he had asked his father: "Why are there wars?"

For a long moment, Henry Beecher had said nothing. Matt remembered looking at his father, and seeing some pain in the preacher's face: sadness, regret. And a kind of vast understanding that seemed to encompass all of life.

And then Henry Beecher had knelt down and looked Matt straight in the eye, and said: "Because people have darkness in them as well as light. And sometimes the path of righteousness leads through the Valley of the Shadow of Death."

Matt thought of his father now, staring out at the Pacific Ocean, eyes vacant, jaw slack. He thought of Grace alone by the old man's side. He thought of a Chinese soldier on the floor in a church, and the light draining out of that man's eyes until they were flat as river pebbles in a dry streambed.

Matt's throat was tight. Tears waited, unshed, behind his eyes.

We are all weapons. Matt looked down at his hands. Artist's hands, his mother's voice whispered. Hands to create beauty.

Matt wasn't sure he could play the piano any more. His fingertips were the size of iron bars. Strength flowed through his veins like molten metal.

We are all weapons.

Sometimes the path of righteousness leads through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

"I understand," Matt said quietly. His voice was a flat rasp of pain.

Matthew Beecher sat down, and spoke no more.

[Wolfenium]

"That's insane!"

Out of nowhere, a voice blasted out into the room, a clatter of chairs at the corner as the rural-looking witch rejected Adrienne's words. She seemed unnerved, even mortified, but as if out of nowhere, she was grinding out the courage to speak out. Clutching her chest, she tried hard to stop herself from trembling. The room's occupants were indeed very intimidating to her, but she could not just relent to the idea that magic makes her a weapon.

"We are not weapons," she called out in a distinctly Amish-like accent, "the Lord didn't give us powers just to kill each other! We're all still people, with or without magic powers. Having them doesn't make us a tool for destruction, not as long as we still hold on to our moral decency! I refuse to accept that abandoning my humanity is a prerequisite to being some hocus pocus magician or superman."

It sounded a bit preachy, sappy even, but the flustered witch with the dove familiar appeared adamant at her stand, eyeing Adrienne as if she spouted blasphemy. Ariel herself was a bit taken aback, awkwardly adjusting her collar at the sudden confrontation. Milena, in contrast, just kept quiet, waiting for her turn to address the others.

"Well... to her credit," the esper grunted, "I lived a life of a normal person before my powers came about. After which, your world decided it had the license to harass me as it pleased. I don't agree with the more evangelical elements of her rebuke, but I have to agree. We are not weapons. Weapons are mindless tools used by others for the function of killing. We still have the free will to refuse, even if we have to, as you said, mature at a younger age."

"Anyway..." she addressed Matt, "I don't disagree that girls my age should be in school receiving a proper education, but let's just say being a cripple meant being homeschooled for most of my life. I wouldn't deem it enough, but I don't see how I could not just continue after our tour of duty is over."

[Malshan]

Up until that point, Markus had spoken in a casual, almost jocular manner. Now, his face became grim and his eyes emptied of the laughter they held. His face morphed from that of a typical old man into that of a hardened killer, feeling no remorse as he crushes the life out of another intelligent being. He looked around the room, taking in the humbled Minuteman, the uncanny child, the pacifist witch.

He spoke then, his voice clearing of the jovial manner in which he had started the interactions with. "You poor, naive children. We will march into war and all of your ideals? Your high falutin' ethics and assumed integrity? It's all going to come to an end. Once you fight, once you've killed for the first time, you lose your rights to preach such a game. Once you've taken an intelligent being's life, you can never go back to what you were before."

"You humans speak of honor, of morality, of kindness in the face of evil. Stand for what is good and hold fast against the encroaching dark. Well, that's all horseshit. Your right is their wrong just as their right is your wrong. You humans talk a good game, but it's all the same. We're all weapons of the ideologies that we serve."

He shook his head slowly. "Once we march into battle, people will try to kill you. And let me tell you, once it comes down to it, you won't hesitate. When it's your life or their life, if it comes to that, your morals will desert you and you will see what you truly are."

"We may look different. Sound different. Taste different. See things differently, think about things apart from each other. But the truth? We're all just beasts. Some of us are simply at peace with what we are. Others try to deny it, but war always prevails."

"I kill for food, be it human or animal. You kill for survival and ideology. How are we any different?"

He paused, taking a moment to stare at Matthew and the witch. "I know what I am. I know what I'm capable of. Some of you..." his gaze lingered over Matthew for a moment too long to be a coincidence. "...know what you're capable of. Being at peace with what you are is far more liberating than your gods and demons. Promise of paradise and threat of damnation."

[Lunas Legion]

"I have to agree with the werewolf on this one." Robert reluctantly spoke up. Normally he wouldn't; this wasn't his fight. He didn't bother with petty ethics or morality; he was solely concerned with results. "As much as anyone hates to acknowledge it, when push comes to shove we're all weapons. Weapons in different forms than a rifle, but weapons nonetheless. You can try and change, but, well, what's made for one purpose cannot always be perfectly reforged into something else. But if you're going to be a weapon, you might as well choose something evil to fight against, like Shouty Moustached Fritz across the Channel. Hell, you might even come out differently. War's a crucible. Who's to say what the end product will be?"

Alchemy, as a school of magic, left too much time for thinking in his opinion. It straddled the line between conventional magic and chemistry, an awkward fusion of the two into something more, yet less. He'd also found that quite a lot of alchemical mixtures and experiments took time to yield any productive results, and as running multiple experiments had been considered bad form by many of the books he had, he'd taken to studying philosophy. Partially for his own interest, partially because if you were going to find the Philosopher's Stone, it made sense to be a philosopher.

"But anyway, a question of my own. Why, exactly, do you want an alchemist? And me at that? My... Fellows don't exactly paint me or my Magnum Opus in a flattering light from what I've heard, and although alchemy has it's..." He thought back to the numerous fires and explosions in his basement back in the US. "Uses in combat, I doubt what it can do from range is any more damaging than a conventional hand grenade, and transmutation requires close contact. I don't see what use I'll be when the bullets start flying, and I'm not too keen to become a meatshield. Although if it's more of a lab role, well, I'm sold. As long as I can continue my own projects."

[Reverend Norv]

1050 Hours
27 April 1942
Shadow Command Headquarters, Baker Street, London
United Kingdom

There was an argument.

Matt listened to it with half an ear. He heard the young girl with the dove familiar burst out with words that Matt himself would have spoken not so very long ago: words about common humanity, moral decency. God.

Matt covered his eyes with one hand. His fingertips dug into the bridge of his nose. He searched for the place of still peace within him, the place like the ocean. Beauty so vast that it swallowed fear.

That place had seemed very close, back in Montana, where the mountains scraped the vast blue belly of the sky and the snow lay thick and silent, and no human voice broke the thin still air. God had tentatively approached Matt in those mountains, like a deer drawing near a child. God had whispered in the wind that rustled the aspens, murmured in the creak of ice on the lake that heralded the coming of spring. No man had come within a hundred miles of Matt's cabin, but Matt had never been alone.

Milena was looking at Matt, talking about her past and her future. She had been homeschooled. She wanted to go back to school after her tour of duty was done. The thought never seemed to occur to her that she might die before she got the chance to read the book that would change her life. The thought never seemed to occur to her that she might come back with no eyes, no hands. The thought never seemed to occur to her that war was its own education, and that killing closed some doors forever.

But of course, Matt realized, it was natural that Milena wouldn't think that way. For all her precocious intelligence and all her bitter sarcasm, she was still a child. Every girl Milena's age knew that she would live forever. Every girl Milena's age knew that there would be time enough left in life to explore and to become and to experience all that she could see and be and know.

Milena was a child.

Let it all be true for her, Matt prayed. Let her live to learn, and to grow, and to love. Let all the doors stay open for her. Let her be free.

It was a fool's hope, a cry in the dark, grasping at straws. In the darkness beyond Matt's closed eyes, Markus was talking about doors that closed forever, about the beast within and the futility of morals, about hypocrisy and bloodlust. About how war always prevailed.

Matt thought of the pictures of Nanking. Japanese soldiers beheaded babies. War always prevails.

And yet he prayed still. Let her be free of it. A cry in the dark. A fool's hope. Unanswered and unanswerable.

Unless the strength to say the prayer was an answer in itself. Unless the cry in the dark was the sound within the empty tomb. Unless the fool's hope was the cross.

The path of righteousness leads through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

The path of righteousness.

Beauty so vast it swallowed fear.

Matt's hand fell from his face. His eyes opened. He stood, stooped, still uncertain.

"How are we any different?" It was Markus' question. Matt repeated it slowly. The Minuteman could feel the answer on the end of his tongue. He thought of his father in the pulpit in the jungle, the heartbeat before the rifle-butt smashed all his eloquence out onto the church floor. Matt felt the whisper of the wind through aspen trees.

"We are different because of love," Matt said simply.

"I do this thing for love. Not survival. Not ideology. No one forced me to be here. No one brainwashed me." Matt felt a new confidence flow through him, and the words rushed up, unplanned, unsought, unedited, triumphant. "I am here because there are people in this world that I love. I meet more of them every day. They are men and women, mundane and extraordinary, German and Japanese and Russian, black and white and brown, Christian and Jewish and Buddhist. They have lives of their own. They have hopes and dreams. They have futures full of infinite possibility. They are beautiful. They are precious. And I love them."

"I am here for people, Markus," Matt said, and his deep voice was loud now, maybe too loud, ringing like a trumpet. "I am here because when you love someone, you want them to be happy, and you want them to be free, and you want them to live long lives full of grace. I am here because when you love someone, you pray for them, and you fight for them, and you are ready to die for them. I am here because when you love someone, killing is not the end of faith, and it is not the end of honor, and it is not the end of all that is good in you. I am here because love casts out fear, and triumphs over hatred, and defies cruelty, and calls you to live in the light for the sake of those you love."

"We are different because of love. I kill for love, and killing does not consume me. You kill to eat, and you consume your soul with every bite." Matt shook his head. "And I am sorry for that, Markus. God knows I am. Because the only paradise you'll ever know, and the only damnation too, is killing itself. Your life is nothing but blood: no love, no kindness, no peace. And when you die, there will be no one left to pray for you but me."

"But we are different, Markus," Matt concluded. He let out a deep breath, and thought of the ocean, and smiled at Milena. "We are all of us different. And we all have a job to do, of which I think Lieutenant Commander Fleming has been waiting to tell us." Matt raised his eyebrows. "I, at least, am eager to hear him."

[Malshan]

Markus looked up at Matthew. "If that is your answer, hold onto it with all you have. For it will take all that you have to keep it alive. War and strife will try to take it from you. More than likely it will succeed."

"I have my ancestors gazing down upon me. Long lines of proud warriors awaiting my triumphant arrival to the endless halls and boundless woodlands of Valhalla."

He bowed his head and spoke a prayer.

"Lo, there do I see my Father.
Lo, there do I see my Mother and
My Brothers and my Sisters.
Lo, there do I see the line of my people back
to the beginning.
Lo, they do call to me.
They bid me take my place among them in the
halls of Valhalla
Where thine enemies have been vanquished,
Where the brave shall live forever.
Nor shall we mourn, but rejoice for those that
have died the glorious death."

[Mnar Secundus]

"Well, thank you kindly," she said, allowing her Texan accent to take prevalence over the smattering of New Yorker inside her - she never much liked the New York accent, and had thus far been highly successful in eliminating it. "Sadly I didn't win that night, but I plan to win the next one."

If there even IS a next one, she thought grimly. If the rumors of what Hitler (and Stalin) were doing were true, there might not be enough Jews to have such a championship in a few years.

Sophie smiled again. I really need to check up on the Rosenkranzes, then. She was about to say that she was looking forward to the next tournament -- well, the next event --, disregarding the new arrivals, when M stood and spoke up.

Holy

crap

you

people

post

goddamn

fast

Oh. So that's an esper. She had been briefed about them prior to this meeting -- Mundane teenagers or children given supernatural abilities through scientific methods. It was an interesting concept, although the specifics of it, as far as she could theorize, made her somewhat squeamish. Going by physical appearance, Anatoly was probably one too: Sophie wasn't willing to bet that two albinos teenagers would coincidentally enroll in the same division of the same service on the same date without some pretty significant common ground, especially when one considered which service this was. Speaking of which, our friend the blubbering Easterner turned out not to be so blubbering after all. She smiled thinly at Anatoly, mentally congratulating him for his successful deception; one could not fault Sophie Dulac for being vindictive.

It was slightly irritating, though, how swiftly the entire room was dissolving into arguments over ethical and moral issues. Sophie was used to the magus system: when you were capable of doing something, you were considered mature enough to do it. She understood where Beecher was coming from, and approved to an extent, but this wasn't the place or the time to debate ponderously and wax lyrical over the issue. They had all enrolled -- Or been enrolled -- to fight a war that was changing every day, they couldn't afford to ...

more

arguing

... And now, predictably, it had gotten worse. You could always count on werewolves to inflame a situation -- Sophie had often wondered if it was a biological issue, or something with the bases of their culture. Or both, of course. Whatever the reason, everyone involved had valid points, so this wasn't going to go anywhere.

The maga sighed, put her cigar down on a silver holder she took out of her satchel, and stood up, clapping her hands once. "Alright, everyone," she said, her voice sharp, "let's calm down. Captain Beecher, your sentiments honor you," -- and Sophie was surprised to find herself genuinely thinking this -- "but it should be understood that everyone here knew what they were getting into and took the decision to do so in full possession of their abilities. Moreover, I would assume that SHADOCOM -- is that how you called it, Lieutenant? -- screened applicants for those who actually had the ability to take that decision." She wasn't so sure about that, actually: depending on the available resources, selection might not have been viable, but nobody needed to hear that kind of pointless detail.

Sophie turned towards the huge werewolf, completely undaunted, as she continued: "The point is, all of this debating is taking up too much time, and when a magus thinks there is too much debate going on, that's a big deal. Markus -- I assume I may call you Markus? --, I think most people in this room would be grateful if you toned your confrontational attitude down several notches. You might find it more pleasant for yourself as well. I can guarantee that getting along with people is a stress-reliever."

She then turned towards M -- Well, Fleming, I suppose. "Lieutenant," she said businesslike, "I second Captain Beecher's suggestion. Let's get down to the ... meat of the subject." At this, she glanced at Markus with an infinitesimal grin before concluding: "What is our first assignment going to be?"

[Occupied Deutschland]

December 18, 1938
SS-Ahnenerbe research facility
Waischenfeld, Germany

“I sincerely apologize for the way you were treated. But your—‘kindred’ I believe is the term you use for each other—are rather difficult to restrain at times. I’m certain such an apology means nothing to you at the moment, but I hope you will believe me when I say that it is sincere. You would like a drink, I am sure. You must be thirsty after so long without blood.” The fancily-dressed man set a pair of bottles and two glasses on the simple table of the cell.

Jannie wished she could have stood when he entered the room. Or, if not that, she wished she could have sat up from her position lying against the cold cobblestone floor. Wished she could at least tilt her head to glare at him with her remaining eye. All she could manage was a slight crane in her neck that didn’t even bring the man’s feet into her sight. God, now she did want a drink. More than anything else in the world she wanted a drink. It had been…so long. But what she didn’t want to do was accept a drink from this human. He was far too familiar to her.

Unfortunately, what she wanted was overruled by what she needed. Jannie felt herself stir as she smelled what was in one of the bottles, and pathetically stretched a hand out towards it, almost against her will. With what seemed herculean effort, she pulled herself forward with the same arm to try and get closer to the wondrous smell. Pulled until the chain attached to the wall and the collar around her neck snapped tight and prevented any further progress.

“Oh dear, that is no good. Let me get that Countess.” The man stood and withdrew an old-fashioned iron key from a pocket and approached her. In the back of her mind, Jannie noted that everything since he’d entered had been deliberately engineered to humiliate her. The knowledge didn’t get rid of the feeling, however. She still felt humiliated, and even more so because she knew she was supposed to feel humiliated. As if to drive home the point, she heard herself whimper. Why, she didn’t quite know. She couldn’t sort out her own disjointed thoughts.

The man leaned in front of her to insert the key into the collar, and removed the lock that held the chain on. Moving more on instinct than conscious thought, fangs quickly extended themselves and Jannie used the last reservoirs of her strength to heave herself at him in an animalistic need. Before the man could react, she twisted her head and went for his neck. Much better than the old, bottled garbage he’d offered her, and much more fulfilling to her own sense of self-respect and pri—

An all-too familiar pain shot up her fangs and reverberated in her mind in mockery of her ill-considered action. The collar of the man’s shirt was lined with something, and in her nearly comatose state she couldn’t work her way around or through it before he pushed her head away.

“Now that was quite rude. And after I was courteous enough to unlatch you. Let us have no more of that.” The man stated, fixing Jannie with a hard stare and then contemptuously, and yet oddly gently, wrapping his arms underneath he knees and shoulders and picking her up. Jannie fumed at the additional shame as he marched her to the table in his arms. She didn’t even think of trying to bite at his exposed wrists or arms.

Jannie, feeling as if she were almost in a trance, struggled to keep her eye open and puzzled over the man’s actions as he deposited her in the room’s second chair. She didn’t know what else to do. She was just so thirsty and tired. Her thoughts were sluggish. She felt like she should be able to sort things out, but all she could focus on was the bottle on the table.

“I am Doctor Franz Grobba,” the man explained as he uncorked both bottles and poured a piteously small amount of wine into his glass and blood into one she hoped was for her. That was the only thing that made sense. Jannie had just opened her mouth to beg for more when Franz continued, “And I am experimenting with runes and monsters. Please, drink.”

Jannie knew the label ‘monsters’ was for her and wanted to object, but instead sat resignedly in the chair across from Franz staring at the glass. So that was what he was here for. He wanted information from her about runes. As if she would know anything about them. The man clearly had her confused with a mage for some reason. Trying to appear nonchalant, Jannie reached out and took the wine-glass of blood he had poured for her. The act died quickly as she drew it closer to her, however, and she drained the glass with one large swallow. She hated herself as she did for the overt display of her thirst and weakness, but could do nothing to stop it.

When she was finished she slapped the glass down on the table and stared over it at the doctor. It was then she realized she didn’t like him. He reminded her of everything she had never liked in the nobility. He displayed a self-assuredness she didn’t think was from any concrete accomplishment but because the way had been cleared of challenge for him. Undoubtedly it was the result of either direct patronage on the part of the Nazi party, or because other intellectuals who would challenge him had been silenced by that same party. The latter she could have accepted in principle, depending on the stupidity of the idea pushed, but the former was only excusable when applied to people of true talent otherwise passed over for recognition. Jannie did not think Doctor Franz Grobba had ever been passed over for recognition in his life. More likely he’d only gotten recognition for things he didn’t deserve. She was tired of seeing him so often, even if this was the first time she’d seen him.

“It is my theory that I may be able to restore sight, of a sort, to your other eye, if you would let me.” Jannie’s mouth dropped open and she winced at the reminder of the all-too fresh disfigurement. “Germania Lodge is skeptical, of course, and I won’t promise you anything at all. Especially not before we’ve gotten to actually attempt the process. It’s fascinating though, really. An interesting kind of syncretism between traditional runic magic and witchcraft and more forward-looking National Socialist ideals. We hypothesize that…” The man transformed before her eyes from a captor playing tricks on her to a professorial bookworm enraptured by his latest brainstorm doing the same thing.

For some reason, that almost made him more frightening. Jannie was stunned. She stared at the man with her one good eye, mind slowly stumbling through his words, many of which she didn’t recognize as he began to venture into details. She knew she had to look extraordinarily stupid, but for the first time in a long time she was too surprised to care how much of that emotion she let show. Not that she would’ve been in much shape to conceal it anyways.

Her mind finally began to catch up. Or, perhaps, for the first time since the door of her cell had opened, it began to actually work. Then she was able to realize the potential ‘volunteering’ might offer her. Stuck in her cell, chained to the wall, she was stuck. Perhaps, if she went along with the man’s idea, the change of pace would at least give her an opportunity to do something, anything, to try and escape her situation. The detached manner the doctor spoke of the experiment, and the cold chill Jannie didn’t know she could feel it sent up her spine, warred with that possibility of escape that dangled before her.

Franz had quit talking a while earlier and was looking at her, presumably waiting for an answer of some sort. As if of a mind of its own, Jannie’s eye darted from him to the bottle of blood before her. Would he take it away if she reached for it? Was she supposed to reach for it as a sign of acceptance? Was it drugged somehow? She hadn’t even bothered to sniff or examine what she’d drunk. She hadn’t even tasted it, and she still wanted more.

“There is no need to rush your decision. Would you like some more, Countess?” Franz asked, as if reading her mind. It probably wasn’t too hard with how obvious she was being. God, how pathetic. How infuriating.

Jannie wanted to tell him to get out. She wanted to use the tiny, almost imperceptible, amount of strength he’d provided her in the single small glass to force him out. She was fed up with his games and incessant talk. She wanted to make some sort of principled stand.

What she did instead was meekly nod and say, “Yes please, doctor.”

“Don’t be shy then fraulein. Drink.” Franz reached an arm forward, but in his haste knocked the bottle of blood over. It clattered onto its side, quickly spilling its contents off the edge of the small table onto the floor. As the cruelest of jokes, the blood quickly disappeared into the cracks between the stones when it hit.

Jannie couldn’t contain the tortured, wordless cry of despair that escaped her, and practically dived off her chair to take up a position on her knees underneath the stream of falling fluid. It was only after she’d done so and taken the first swallow, and felt the bit she’d missed running down her neck, that she was even conscious of what she’d done. It took still another swallow for her to feel any sense of shame over the act and realize how utterly barbaric it was. Even with the realization, however, she couldn’t draw herself away from the falling stream or quit drinking.

She tried to force her mouth away. To end the humiliating scene before it could go on too long. Or at least, she thought she tried. But she was so thirsty, and it tasted so good after so long without. Jannie reached one hand out to the leg of the table, and this time tried to physically pull herself away. But her strength seemed to abandon her the moment she began to pull as something familiar but thirsty, twisted and dark in the depths of her mind held her in place. She was so thirsty. In much the same way it had forced her to try and bite the doctor earlier, instinct kept her from moving. However, it was aided by…something else.

In the end, Jannie abandoned the attempt to move and let her arm drop limply back to her side. It wasn’t so bad really. Embarrassing undoubtedly, but she needed strength more than she needed to keep her self-image intact. After all, she wouldn’t be in any condition to even try and escape if she wasted what little sustenance she was given. She was thirsty and right now had the chance to drink. That overrode any other concerns for the moment.

“I apologize Countess, I still, unfortunately, have much of the bumbling professor about me. Always dropping things and bumping into them.” Franz said softly as he picked up the bottle. Jannie tried to restrain herself but still found she could not, and slowly followed the still-dropping stream of blood back up until reaching the table itself. She did manage to keep from dragging her tongue along the small puddle on the tabletop, a restraint that made her inordinately, and illogically, proud with herself. With a last look at the small circle of fluid, she slammed back into her chair. Trying not to think about what she’d just done, she covered her dripping mouth and chin with the back of a hand and focused on doctor Grobba.

“Madam.” he said simply, holding out a handkerchief. Jannie could think of no man she had ever wanted to kill more at any moment in her long life. Instead of doing what she wanted, she ripped the cloth square from his hands and cleared her face with it. So much for her own self-respect and pride. The worst part was she would probably do the exact same thing again if it was repeated. She was still thirsty. Before the man had entered, she’d just been so gone as to not even be able to notice it, or care about it.

“Do you have any questions, My Lady?” Jannie felt a shiver of aggravation at the way the man-cattle used the formal words. He said them, but she could tell he didn’t mean them. Either because she was a ‘monster’ to him, or because he was one of the brand of fiery Nazis who disparaged noble title in general, the words were just a convenient formality for him. They were a way for him to exploit her subtly by way of politeness and she recognized it. “Me and my associates will do our utmost to answer any concerns you might have right now, or in the future. Whether you decide to go through with our proposal or not. But, you should.”

Franz shrugged as he finally took a small sip from his own wine glass. “I wish I could do something to fully undo your kindreds’ poor treatment of you, but alas our scientists have not yet found a way around the barrier of time.” He explained, in the same overly placating tone as he’d spoken the ‘my lady’ with. Jannie could detect the self-interest of the man, but it seemed to be balanced out by a rivalry with his vampire countrymen. He also presented the best chance she had of escaping from her current situation. It would do her no good to go back to lying semi-comatose against the floor, barely able to think.

Or was that just her own desire for more food leading her to the decision that got her what her body wanted? Jannie was disgusted with how unsure she was of her own decision-making ability.

“If I may ask, why do you need me?” Jannie asked slowly, placing her hands in her lap even as her eye strayed back to the bottle again. He’d won this meeting. But she wouldn’t let him win in the long-run. Of course, how she’d prevent that she didn’t know at the moment.

Franz’s smile grew after a second’s hesitation. “Well, we don’t need you specifically. We wanted a vampire as our first full-scale test subje—partner,” Franz offered Jannie an apologetic eye at his own slip, “As we figured you would be more resilient, particularly if supplied with plenty of blood, to the demands of the operation. Me and my associates chose you in particular as an additional way of apologizing. I was sincere when I said I was sorry for your treatment, My Lady. Some of the vampires in service of the Reich are not the most…level-headed as they could be, and your kind’s old feuds are, regrettably, still present to some degree in our ranks. I realize my words are of little benefit though to one who has been wronged as you have, which is why we thought offering the chance of correcting your disfigurement, in the small manner we might be able to, would demonstrate our sincerity more effectively.”

Jannie wasn’t sure how much of the man’s words to believe, if any. She could detect the hint of some kind of opposition between him, his ‘associates’ and the vampires who’d captured her in them, but she wasn’t certain where it came from. Then there was the possibility it was all an act. She’d thought she was good at reading humans, but the combination of her own near-starvation and the doctor’s seeming, but periodically slipping, sincerity threw her assessment off.

“What would I need to do?” Jannie heard herself say, hoping it was the right decision. Perhaps it was weak of her, but if she could just get more to drink perhaps she’d be able to do something besides slowly cough dust out of her body until she disintegrated from desanguination. At the moment, that seemed like the only other option.

Franz beamed and drained his wine-glass in an uncultured display of celebration. “For now? Nothing, my lady.” Again, spoken with that obvious insincerity, “In a short while, however, we can have you moved out of this dreadful cell at the least. Please, excuse me and I’ll begin the process. Always paperwork to file, you know?”

Franz rose and began to go for the door.

Jannie heard him muttering something under his breath. Perhaps if she’d thought such a thing was coming, or if she were more attentive to begin with, she could have resisted the effects. Perhaps, had she not been drugged and half-hypnotized, she could have even interrupted the spell before it was finished. As it was, the mutterings were her only warning of the freight train headache of exhaustion that crashed through her head a mere moment before she passed out.

*********************

“Oh come on, Franz. You saw the subject in there. This is, what, the eleventh time today it dived onto the floor to lap up spilling blood just because you suggested to it to be thirsty? That vampire is gorging herself on blood just because you say it hasn’t had any! The vampire equivalent of eating out of our hands!”

Franz shook his head, “Yes, at the moment. But you’ll notice without redosing her she was already showing complications and degeneration. She couldn’t think of a single question in our first seven sessions, then she asked what she needed to do in the next three, and this time she was actively questioning why we were asking her. That is indicative of a lot more cognitive function going on in the background than you anticipated. Your drug is still wearing off quickly instead of invoking more permanent mental change. I can’t quantify the rest, but if you’d been in that room you’d have felt the difference between this last time and the others. After she drank her glass I was scared, Reinhard. That’s why I went off-script with all that talk of the process involved in the sight-experiment, and threw in as many long words as I could. Dammit, if I hadn’t confused her there I think she would’ve attacked me!”

Reinhard sighed, but nodded. “I know, I’m just optimistic, I guess. You know my opinion, I still think the drug needs some reworking for long-term sustainment in a subject’s host body so we don’t need to reinject them with it. Doubly so in her case, since I have no idea about it’s cross-species applicability even if it does work in humans. But, I don’t like depending on your weird Freudian stuff in general. I am the chemist of this operation. You’re the people-person. What’s your call mein fuhrer?”

Franz chuckled very lightly, “We’ll move on to actually doing the eye. Well, trying to do the eye. Hopefully that works better than either of our experiments have so far. We could probably make the drug better, but I think the major block right now is coming from her mentality and lack of trust. We’re getting our best results when we set ourselves up as opposed to the vampires who hurt her before, that makes her much more compliant with our requests. I think if we demonstrate our sincerity by fixing her eye, we’ll have much better results. It’s worth a try, at least. Plus, it means we’ll finally get that damned bureaucrat off our backs.”

It also meant he would be able to keep his word to the vampire Countess, and more importantly stop the cruelly repetitive and manipulative ‘experimentation’ they were carrying out on her. Granted, it would replace it with another form, but perhaps he could do something about that. Franz did not mention those reasons, though. Instead, he kept them locked deep within the confines of his own mind where even the SS did not yet have a means of discovering them.

For not the first time since he’d attained what he’d thought of once as a prestigious position in the Ahnenerbe, Franz Grobba wished he’d never joined. It had seemed an easy decision once, when it had meant a broad dissemination of his writings and research for the low price of abandoning some of the more rigid academic, or moral, standards of his peers. Back when his racism had been more intellectual position than applied science, he’d seen nothing to object to in it.

Now that he did, though, he was stuck in his position. Both because suddenly resigning from where he was would likely invite scrutiny that was dangerously likely to result in problems for him, and because where he was at least gave him a very slight capability to…limit the damage.

Which left the question of how he could limit the damage his work would do now. How he could make sure his research was abandoned or discarded. It would be nice if he could devise a way to taint Reinhard’s serum as well, but he had a suspicion that it was too late for that. His own eye proposal was much more novel and much less scientific. The problem came in how he could discredit it and ensure the Countess’ escape. He could think of easy ways to do either one alone. But if he could do both, it would at least imply there were problems with the serum as well. Perhaps it would not be enough to stop its development, but perhaps such a setback could slow its development. But how could he do it?

He would just have to do his best. Hopefully, his best would get him past the tightrope he was walking atop alive. He didn’t hold a great deal of hope though. He knew his own ‘best’ was, contrary to the numerous accolades and praises heaped upon him, much less good than others thought. Still, he had to do what he could. Hopefully he would even survive to fully discredit his own ideas.

*********************

Jannie was confused as they led her out of her cell. The cell she now seemed to remember having the same conversation, with minor variations, over and over again inside. A conversation that she recalled often ended with the promise of being moved from the cell. It was an odd memory, distant and very clouded. She felt as if it had all happened in a dream, or to someone else entirely. She didn’t even much enjoy thinking about it. It felt too foreign.

“Ah, Countess. Good to see you. If you would follow me, we’ll begin.” There he was. Him again, waving aside the black-uniformed guards that had been with her. Jannie felt a familiar aggravation, and a deep portion of her mind, below even her conscious realization, screamed at her to kill the man apparently responsible for her confusion. Consciously, she merely followed him.

Franz Grobba lead her, unguarded, out of the building and across a street into a building she assumed was a hospital. She noted it was nighttime during the brief crossing. It was the first reference point for time, excepting ‘mealtimes’ when she’d been given a slight amount of blood, she’d gotten since she remembered being brought to the small hamlet by the SS vampires who’d captured her. She couldn’t contain a soft smile that spread across her scarred face at the quiet peacefulness of the dark as she followed Grobba. She’d always enjoyed spending nights like these outdoors. Be it as a few bats, tossing through the night on bony wings, or floating as a mist. There was little as pleasant as basking in moonlight as a small cloud of mist.

Instead of doing any such thing, however, Jannie followed Grobba into the hospital. She followed up a set of stairs and down a hallway, and finally into one of the rooms. It was flanked by a new pair of black-uniformed guardsmen, who followed her and the German doctor into the room after her. She had a faint sense of having done something wrong, but couldn’t place what it was.

“My lady, before we begin, and since we have some time until my witch associate arrives, share one last drink with me.” Grobba said, gesturing to a pair of bottles in the window-sill of the room. Jannie was once again struck by that disturbing familiarity, and her smile disappeared. She was tempted, perhaps even wanted to refuse, but then nodded. More blood could only be beneficial for her, after all. At some point it’d come in handy when she had a chance to escape.

“My lady, you are a scholar of Germanic lore are you not?” Franz asked over his shoulder as he poured the glasses. He spilled a good deal pouring his own wine, and took an uncultured drink from the bottle itself after finishing. He then filled Jannie’s glass almost to the brim with blood.

“I read.” Jannie said simply, taking the glass when Franz offered it. The confusion, which had abated somewhat, was returning.

“I’m having trouble remembering one of the stanzas of the Poetic Edda that seems somewhat appropriate to our situation. It starts out ‘I know where Othin’s eye is hidden, deep in the wide-famed well of Mimir’, but I don’t recall the rest…” Franz trailed off with a shrug and took a large gulp of his wine.

Jannie thought for a moment, digging through her memory. The Edda wasn’t something she’d ever overly concerned herself with, but the stanza he was referring to was one of the more famous from it. Jannie took a small drink from her glass, which quickly turned into a much longer one as she tasted the difference in it. The hint of wildness and euphoria within it that she could almost feel slowly begin to chase out the cobwebs in her head. It was weak, perhaps diluted in mundane blood, but there was werewolf blood in the glass Franz had given her.

Jannie lowered the glass. He had to have known. “It finishes ‘Mead from the pledge of Othin each morn does Mimir drink, would you know yet more’.” She said, mind racing. Everything she’d been confused about had been happening. She wasn’t crazy. More than that, however, there seemed to be something entirely different going on now. Something her captor, the man she wanted to kill and yet was now looking for direction from, was involved in.

Franz shrugged, “That is it, I always loved that stanza. Sacrifice for the best cause.” He raised his glass, “To honorable Germans making similar such sacrifices.”

The ‘experiment’ began a few minutes later, just as Jannie finally began to once again feel like herself. She wished she could have been as confused and scattered as she had been before it started, instead of in increasing control and awareness of her own faculties. She spent what little time she could in thought trying to work out Franz’s intentions, and desperately trying to ignore what they were doing to her useless eye. Something she didn’t manage as well as she wished when the rune-headed brand came out. She didn’t think she’d screamed in pain and fear for more than a century. She more than made up for it.

It ended eventually. She’d assumed it had to, but had questioned that assumption a number of times during the procedure as it seemed to go on forever. She was assisted up, and for the first time in months as she staggered slightly on her feet, she knew she was actually wholly and completely present. Franz’s werewolf-laced blood, as well as the copious quantities she’d ingested during the procedure itself, seemed to have done more than merely keep her body healthy. It had cleared her mind.

Franz shouldered his way past the witch who’d been overseeing much of the more intense portions of things, and leaned in towards her face. “May I see your eye?” He asked, and Jannie noticed for the first time how much his previous speech had been laced with thinly-veiled orders and suggestions. None of which were present here.

Jannie very slowly opened her right eye anyways, and was immediately struck by how she could actually see out of it. Unable to restrain it, she gasped in pleasure. It wasn’t anything close to real sight, and she knew she should be disappointed. Everything that wasn’t a person in view of her right eye was blurred and wrapped in shadow so thick it overpowered virtually all of the actual color of the world. The occupants of the room, however, seemed to almost glow against the shadowy background. Various shades of blue danced on the skin of everyone present, including herself. It was a surreal, otherworldly look that she knew would quickly become headache-inducing. But it was still better than the complete absence of vision she’d had before.

“What do you see, my lady?”

Jannie had to open her mouth two or three times before she could form the words, even when they came out it was with a breathless near-amazement. “You are all…blue. You are glowing blue.”

Franz leaned closer, so much that Jannie grew distinctly uncomfortable, and poked and prodded at the area around her right eye. Still sore, Jannie squeezed the eye closed under his ministrations. His whisper, when it came, was so low even she had trouble hearing it. “Do not point out the one that looks different when we have you look at them. Then as quickly as you can escape with the one who does. I’ll handle the rest.”

Jannie now didn’t feel that strange compulsion to obey the statements made by the man, and was somewhat tempted to do whatever she wished, up to and including feeding on the doctor, just out of spite. But she pushed the temptation aside. He seemed to have helped her for some reason, she wasn’t going to pay that back in so uncivilized a way. Not until she knew the situation better. Besides, he had the wholly confident voice of a man who’d already thought things through, and she was walking into things completely unprepared.

“Bring in the testers.” Franz said flatly as he finally leaned back from Jannie’s face. The door of the room opened almost before Franz had finished speaking, and a trio of broken men were scooted into the room by another guard. They all looked thoroughly hopeless, heads downcast and feet barely rising with each step.

“Countess, if you could look at these men and then tell us what you see?”

Jannie fought her expression to be sure it revealed nothing of what she thought, and opened her right eye again. The surreal vision returned to her, and this time she shut her left eye to at least stop the jumbling confusion created where the two different eye-sights overlapped. With that done, she turned the black, odal rune branded eye to the men who’d been pushed in.

Like Franz, the witch who’d overseen the operation, and the guards, two of the men danced with thin blue auras that she couldn’t explain. But the third man was different, and didn’t display the blue-tinged shading of the others in the room. It was a peculiarity she was hard-pressed not to visibly take note of no matter how carefully she controlled her reaction.

But Jannie had more than a century and a half of experience in self-control. Unburdened by whatever head-strangeness had invited her numb almost-total compliance with her captors over the past weeks, she passed over him with her eye as if he were no different from any other. Jannie sidelined her own complete confusion over the presence, and absence, of the color as best she could.

“Countess?” Franz prodded, taking a step back to put him directly against the wall and holding his hand out at the three men.

“I do not know what to say. All I can see is—“ Jannie began, only to cut off as she jerked forward and slammed her hand around and into the neck of the witch. The woman collapsed, gasping for air and bringing hands to her throat as she gasped for air. Ignoring her even as she began to fall, Jannie leapt at the nearby pair of guards, leaving the single additional one on the other end of the room who’d brought the ‘testers’ in for later.

For their part, the guards were by no means idle. They were moving into action by the time the witch was on the floor, drawing their sidearms and moving into more appropriate fighting stances of their own. But they were well-acquainted with Jannie, and they knew she was no threat. Knew she was guarded only as a formality, not because she posed a danger. But now she did, and they were forced to reverse their assessment of her in the same moments they tried to stop her.

They weren’t successful.

Jannie wrapped her right arm around the chest of the closer of the two guards while still diving through the air. She let momentum carry her for a moment and slide her around the man’s waist slightly, and then clutched his uniform and chest as tightly as she could. Jannie landed, and in almost the same instant wrenched as hard as she could. The man spun across the short distance between him and the window and crashed through it with a startled scream.

The second guard had his pistol out when Jannie got her hands on him. It was little help at that point, however. Jannie bit the man as she spun him around to stand between herself and the last remaining guard, as the pistol clattered to the ground out of his now-broken arm. The other fully healthy guard had, ironically enough, a similar idea.

The guard held the man who hadn’t had the blue aura in front of him, Luger to the man’s head. As Jannie took a drink and evoked a pained scream of fright out of her hostage, the last guard pressed the barrel of his pistol harder against his hostage’s temple, drawing out a similar scream. Were the man open to considering the matter, he might have found the identical reaction the two men had to their common situations an interesting subject of reflection. Or perhaps he wouldn’t have. Jannie didn’t really care.

The guard scowled “Let Stefan go, or he dies!”

Jannie would have almost been slightly amused at the words if not for the deadliness of things. Taking her fangs out of the man’s neck, Jannie stared at the man she had been forced into a standoff with. “Let him go, or Stefan dies.”

Jannie sunk her teeth slowly back into Stafan, keeping her eyes on the last guard as she did so, and was pleased when he didn’t immediately fire. She had the advantage. The man clearly cared if Stefan made it, while she had no personal connection to the man he was holding. While she didn’t want to see him die, she could exploit that feeling to trade prisoners with the guard. After that, she could burst into a mist and dispatch them both without any—

Doctor Grobba slammed something into the side of the guards’ neck. The guard screamed, and it promptly turned into a blood-choked gurgle. His pistol barked. His hostage died.

Grobba fell into hysterics.

Jannie looked on in the instant all of it happened, and was utterly incapable of doing anything. Snorting with anger, she jerked her fangs free of Stefan’s neck without retracting them and shoved the man to the floor as arterial blood began to pour from his ruptured veins. She didn’t like doing that. It was wasteful and cruel.

Stalking over to Grobba, now on his hands and knees beside the dead hostage, Jannie awkwardly stood in place as the doctor very slowly got a handle on himself. It involved a lot of inappropriate, blasphemous and uncultured words that, in other circumstances, would have invited her criticism. But in this one, Jannie was silent. When the doctor finally spoke, it was obvious he wasn’t anywhere close to recovered. In fact, his voice held a bone-deep sadness Jannie hadn’t expected to hear in a man in his position.

“Run. This will work just as well. Maybe better.”

Unsure what to say, unsure if anything she said could even help, Jannie turned back to the window. With a final, one-eyed glance at the shaking doctor, she dissolved into bats and stormed through the broken window and into the freedom of the night.

***************
December 23, 1938

“So it is your opinion this line of research was fundamentally unsound?”

Franz Groppa nodded, adding in a slight wince at the still-problematic ‘concussion’ he’d received in the horrible tragedy in the operating room the week before. “Yes sir. It is—that is—perhaps I should have considered it sooner but I just…”

Franz stopped himself and took a theatrical breath. He was, at least in a loose sense of the word, an academic and not a fighter. He didn’t have to fake the panic that welled up in him when he thought of the events of that evening, he merely had to direct it into more appropriate channels than speaking the truth.

“Yes sir. You’ll have my full report by the end of the week, but I don’t think this was a fluke. Rechecking our research in the Lodge library, we stumbled upon the source of what we think resulted in the disaster. It seems that some aspects of our work, or more precisely of Germania Lodge’s library we drew our work from, were actually based, at their very root centuries ago, in kabbalah magics.” It was a rather ridiculous assertion, Franz knew. His lie depended almost entirely on the bias he could build against his research. How much he could taint it with the brush of Semitism. Thankfully, his audience was more than willing to listen.

“What? How could that happen? How could you not realize this?”

Franz sighed, “Because the source material didn’t realize it either, sir. Or at least, didn’t admit to it. It attributed what we did to ‘mere’ witchcraft. Which was a close enough cognate in this instance to carry through the procedure, but wasn’t enough to produce any results. The vampire did not see anything out of her eye when she opened it. We think that though that aspect of the magic failed, if it was even actually possible to begin with, it still was powerful enough to somehow open the subject’s mind up to manipulation by Semite wishes, in much the same way they control their golems. Which is why, I believe, once the Jew was killed by Unterscharfuehrer Mueller in his courageous final moments—” Franz was surprised at how easily he made it through that statement, he’d had to practice it to restrain his gorge, “—The vampire quickly abandoned the scene and…spared me instead of mimicking what she’d done to Mueller, the other guards, or Miss Leiz.”

Franz let the guilt enter his voice then, though it wasn’t the result of what his listener would assume it was. Survivor’s guilt had nothing to do with him. Here he was, using the Jew’s—the man’s—death as some kind of lever to get what he wanted. Even if what he wanted was a good thing, it made him feel…dirty. Even if it meant saving many more, it couldn’t help that man, and he’d never offered himself to be involved in such an undertaking.

Perhaps worse than that, Franz didn’t even know the man’s name. He would likely never know it. If he ever made inquiries, it would probably raise questions he couldn’t afford to have asked. He wasn’t supposed to care, and so, to protect the lie he was wrapping this whole event in, he couldn’t care.

“With such in mind, it’s my firm belief that all research or experimentation sharing the starting point of my ‘blood identification’ theories needs to be stopped until such a time as I can reopen it without Semitic traditions fouling the waters.” Franz said the words with the necessary graveness, allowing a brief sliver of duty to enter it as he spoke of reopening. It would look better if he appeared to labor fruitlessly at the topic for an extended period of time.

“All of it?” the man behind the desk asked, raising an eyebrow.

Franz hesitated a brief instant, as if reluctant to give up everything, and nodded.

“You realize what this will probably do to your reputation?” This was spoken very softly, very frighteningly.

Franz nodded and said perhaps his first sincere words of the conversation, “Sir, my reputation can be damned.” Then, it was time to lie again, “This time it was a witch and three loyal servants of the Reich, but if we continue this research and experience the same problem, which we will of that much I am certain, it could pose even worse consequences next time. This was supposed to assist in creating an effective police for the SS and the Reich who could spot true Aryans by sight alone. If those people were all subject to influence by Jews themselves because of the process we put them through…”

Franz trailed off and threw in a very small shudder to demonstrate his point. The man rested both index fingers against his chin for a moment, and nodded.

“I see your point, doctor. In fact, I think I even agree with it.”

Franz felt as if he could have flown.

Coming out from behind his desk, the man wandered to his window to look out at the streets of Berlin. “Take your time with the report, doctor Grobba. For the moment, we’ll put a hold on everything that depends on your research until we can all make a more informed judgement on the matter. But please, for the moment, go and get yourself some more rest. Organize your thoughts. Spend some time with your family. I do not expect you to return to pursuits of the mind while still injured.”

Franz nodded gravely and came to a civilian and somewhat sloppy rendition of attention. Himmler didn’t fault one for being an academic, but he did fault those who failed to show the proper loyalty. With all the enthusiasm he could muster, Franz shot his arm out and barked the necessary words. Himmler turned and returned the gesture, before smiling in farewell to Franz and sitting back down to attend to some kind of paperwork or another.

Franz didn’t stop shaking for days.

---

---

---

When lieutenant-commander Fleming revealed himself, Jannie’s eye narrowed extremely at the suddenly much more intense light of the room, but it slowly returned to normal. As it did, she got a better look at ‘M’s demeanor. The way the man carried himself certainly fit with the image his workspace had created. He was dignified, with a self-assured confidence that seemed the result of challenges addressed and brought to an end, either victoriously or in failure. Most likely for him, considering how the war had been going so far for the Allies, that likely meant more of the latter than the former. But what mattered was the act of facing those challenges itself.

Jannie paid careful and quiet attention to the man-cattle commander as he explained some of the wider aspects of Shadow Command and their overall goals. The broader strokes of strategic objectives were much more important than the tactical means or practices involved in accomplishing them. She took her eye off Fleming only to study the projected map of Northern Africa when it appeared. It told her much more than the occasional newsreel at the beginning of a late-night film or cartoon had. Particularly about Shadow Command operations, a topic those newsreels had not touched on whatsoever.

Jannie visibly, and audibly, jerked halfway out of her chair when she heard the name ‘Van Helsing’ the first time. Her mouth dropped open for a split-second before she corralled whatever exclamation, insult, or formless noise had been about to come from it and slammed it closed with a sharp crack. The second time the name arose, her reaction was slightly more controlled. Jannie’s whole body merely flinched as if she had been slapped by something. Something particularly heavy and big enough to hit her whole body at once, but at least she didn’t come out of her chair.

“Van Helsing?” She breathed softly as the conversation continued around her. She spoke the name as if convincing herself of what she’d heard. Jannie even went so far to hastily cross herself, though the movement was very subdued.

Perhaps the vocal minority of Britons and others who were proclaiming the ‘demonic’ nature of vampires were correct after all. The odds of her, multiple werecreatures, and not just one but TWO members of the Helsing family in the same room destined to work together, were too much. God clearly hated her kind. Or, perhaps more problematically, he must hate her in particular. It had been a very long time since her last confession.

With difficulty, Jannie forced her own sense of reason to combat the anger, fear and even hate the Helsing name provoked. Her reason won in the end because of only one thing. Markus. His continued comments, and more damagingly the contents of those comments, were much stronger than any self-control Jannie could have exercised. He became a useful mental punching bag for Jannie. With a zeal, she poured her displeasure at the Helsing’s presence into ever-more creative and unflattering descriptions for the beast, his beliefs, his ancestry, and his clothing. They were not all beasts, all creatures like him ruled by their instincts and desires.

Holding back any comment, Jannie watched Matt out of the corner of her eye as he spoke. She was incredibly impressed by the gentleman’s—for that was what he was she realized—handling of Markus’ claim. She wasn’t familiar with the ‘Minuteman’ program that he was apparently part of, but if he was representative of it she could at least credit it for containing such men. She idly wondered what an intellectual discussion with the man would be like. He was an American, so almost undoubtedly ascribed to some of the sillier extremes of ideological perspective. But the conversation could be interesting. Plus, his blood smelled quite good.

“Perhaps in a similar vein as Captain Beecher’s earlier question,” Jannie’s eye rolled so she could look up at the Minuteman’s neck for an instant before she forced it back to Fleming with an almost imperceptible shake of her head, “I would like to make sure the young ones know that if captured doing what I presume we will be doing, their being ‘officially’ part of your Armed Services will not keep them from being shot as spies. Or hung by the neck until dead. Or subject to interrogation, torture, or worse.” Jannie’s right hand absently rose to scratch the mess of scar tissue over her eye for a moment. The comment hadn’t really been a question, hadn't demanded any response, hadn't been much of anything but softly-spoken words pronounced to ensure she wouldn't slip into a tirade against the Helsings. But she felt obligated to speak it. Even if one was not a mundane human, one’s youth should be…special. It should be free of such worries as death and destruction, duty and sacrifice. Jannie had never liked the seriousness of the human child-rearing she'd observed in the Victorian era. Her own fathers', both vampire and mundane, had taken a similar perspective to her and protected her for a long while before stacking duties and requirements upon her.

The hand scratching the scar suddenly stopped, and Jannie folded it with her other in her lap. Ignoring the proverbial elephant in the room would get her nowhere. “I would also like to take this opportunity to ask the Helsing siblings to be so kind as to give me a moment of their time when this briefing is over with. Freely and of their own free will, of course.” A razor-thin smile accompanied the last words. Or perhaps it was an open-mouthed grimace. The vampire was difficult to read at times.

[Constaniana]

In hindsight, walking to Baker Street instead of getting a cab had been a poor decision of Annella's. But when she had first disembarked at the railway station her urban wanderlust compelled her to make the journey on foot and see more of London rather than have it be a blur in the windows. The Glaswegian assured herself that she had a brisk pace and could make it to the base at a reasonable time, but ultimately the automobile would still beat her there. By the end she gave up glancing to the side at the empire's capital and jogged towards Baker Street hoping to not be too late, but by the time she arrived it seemed the meeting had already started.

Not wanting to rudely interrupt Commander Fleming's presentation, Annella hung back at the doorway and waited for a good moment to enter and introduce herself. Though it almost seemed as if the group was subconsciously determined to deny her such a moment judging by the extensive arguments that broke out. Goodness gracious did this group love the sound of their own voices. Finally there seemed to be a lull in the conversation as the very very pale woman stopped talking, and Annella gave a cough as she walked in.

"Annella Maureigh, ferromancer maga," the Glaswegian announced as she quickly moved towards a seat distant from the smelly angry cowboy werewolf. "Sorry for being late, sir," she added to M, before falling silent and folding her arms, bracing herself for another bout of drama from this lot.

[Latznavia]

Meeting Room, Baker Street - April 27, 1942

Anatoly tried to keep up, but the arguing was growing increasingly irrational. He looked at his hands as the saying 'humans are/aren't weapons were being thrown around left and right. He tried to keep calm and think of Minsk, but more horrid memories came back. He returned to Tunguska in his mind.

Tunguska, Siberia - September 13, 1935

"Again." A voice rang out over a loudspeaker to a young fifteen or sixteen year old boy wearing nothing but Army khaki pants and his once dirty blonde hair mixed with streaks of white. He looked at the loudspeaker as the silence took over and the wind out the cold air rapped loudly. "I said, Again! Mr. Bellinkov." Anatoly nodded and placed his hands on the frozen earth. He shook a bit, his eyes growing blank as the ice cracked and melted. He huffed, his body shaking violently when suddenly a large ice spike rushed out of the ground as water and froze. Anatoly's nose began to bleed violently as both nostrils dripped blood, then his eye. Anatoly began to panic and turned to the PA. "Again."

Anatoly shuddered as another gale of wind whipped passed, the gates were only a few meters away. He could run, the facility couldn't stop him. He could just run. That damn intercom couldn't follow him, be thought and began to walk away.

"Again, Mr. Bellinkov." His slow walk became a stride, then a run. He was running barefoot through the Siberian wilderness towards a gate, he tried to ignore the cold, it wouldn't stop him. He could be free, it was right there. He could not be stopped, but that dream faded with the sound of a loud crack that shattered the silence and Anatoly's body felt cold, he was in the worst pain he had ever felt and he collapsed to the ground and grabbed his upper leg, he felt like it had been ripped off by a tremendous force. His hands felt warm, he looked at them and saw they were red, the ground was slowly pooling in red. His vision was closing as he looked up at a tower to see a man with a rifle aimed at him, everyone had rifles at him. He was scared now, then the building where the intercom was attached to opened up.

A man in a labcoat walked out with four soldiers equipped with Assault Rifles and batons. The soldier in the tower began to walk down and soon he was surrounded. Anatoly gripped tighter on the wound, it hurt so much as he bled out, tears streaming down his eyes from suffering. His mother always said that doctors would help him if he was hurt, it was their job. He turned to the labcoated man as be came closer and closer. He murmured and mumbled, his voice hoarse as his nose bleed became worse. It hurt so much, the doctor looked down as the soldiers aimed down at him.

"I am hurting. Can I go home, please. I want my mommy." The doctors expression was hidden behind a scarf and glasses but his hands were pale as he reached up and adjusted his glasses and to the horror of Anatoly, a very familiar voice came from the scarfed man.

"Again, Mr. Bellinkov. Try it, again."

Meeting Room, Baker Street - April 27, 1942

His flashback ended when an unfamiliar voice entered and the rubbing of his leg. He looked towards the doors to see a young woman standing there. He could tell by her flushed appearance that she was later than she wished to admit then she spoke up.

"Annella Maureigh, ferromancer maga," she said, her voice was different than the others but it was still Western as most of the others. He then turned his gaze to the crippled girl who had yet to introduce herself. She was clearly an Esper, but was too young to have ever entered the program like him, she also spoke in a hated way about the USSR. "Sorry for being late, sir," the woman spoke again, and he looked back at her. His attention was scattered and hoped silently that the girl didn't have the ability to see his past like some other Espers he knew could.

"Maureign, there is free seat here." The Soviet boy spoke up and pointed at a seat next to him. "I will catch you up on what has spoken."

[Nature-Spirits]

"I understand."

It was such a simple sentence. Without seeing Matthew's face or hearing the tone of his voice, it would have had practically no meaning at all. Yet there was so much emotion behind it, so much... pain.

Adrienne blinked and sat back, surprised that her words had had such an effect.

"That's insane!" She glanced over at the source of the voice to see a very young witch. The girl began speaking of God, of morals, of humanity. Adrienne felt a great sadness flood her heart, but her face was placid. Humanity, she thought, almost contemptuously. Poor child. If anything, killing is the most human thing we can do. One look at our world's history will confirm it. She sighed silently, her chest rising and falling slowly as she continued to finger her crucifix. And God? You say that God did not create us to kill? Regardless of God's intentions, this "Shadow Command" sees us as nothing more than weapons; and in this war, that is all that matters.

Milena spoke up, citing their free will. But the naïveté behind that statement was clear to the older witch. Fighting in a war, when the only options were to kill or be killed, free will was essentially stolen. Yes, one had the free will to choose their own death over killing another. But truly, would any one of the people in this room do so? All living beings had a prime directive: To stay alive. If that entailed killing, anyone would do it.

And then she spoke of school: "I don't see how I could not just continue after our tour of duty is over." Adrienne almost laughed bitterly -- angrily -- at the absurdity of that, but the sadness in her heard precluded her from doing so. Growing up in the Québec Coven, with the power that she possessed and the duties it entailed, she knew better than to expect surviving past a fight. Sometimes, when Wendigos would encroach on Coven territory, the Council would dispatch witches to put down the stupid animals. Since Adrienne had fully come into her powers, direct clashes had become less necessary, but they were not unheard-of. And, from these experiences, she had learned one simple truth:

People die in fights.

And then Markus spoke up. And, surprisingly, Adrienne found herself agreeing with him. The dog may have been a beast destined for Hell, but it shared a mutual understanding with the witch of the ways of the world. Markus, much like herself, had doubtlessly seen his fair share of tragedy. And Markus, much like herself, had doubtlessly killed others for his own benefit. She found that she felt... not quite respect, really, but something approaching respect. She levelled a calm gaze at him and let go of her crucifix, folding her hands in her lap.

As the philosophical argument continued to rage around her, Adrienne sighed again, looking at her hands. She had not meant to cause such a stir. She half-listened as some people stated their agreement with her and Markus, and others fought back with optimistic ideals. Matthew spoke of love.

Adrienne had never truly been loved.

But she was quickly shaken out of her reverie when Matthew and Sophie brought the room's attention back to Fleming. Yes, she thought, and looked up, glancing around the room. The vampire Countess expressed that she, too, had a question, and went on to briefly detail what would occur in the event of their being captured. Adrienne could tell that it was not a question, and the corners of her mouth turned up ever so slightly in a sad smile. She truly did love the vampire nobility's way with words.

A young maga standing by the entrance -- apparently late -- introduced herself quickly, and Adrienne glanced over her before returning her eyes to Fleming. It was time for him to speak.

[WolFina]

Carrie glanced at all the various guests as she strode over to the table, being sure to take in their characteristics (face, smell, physique). A man held the door she had thrown across the room in his arms, gently chiding her for the reckless feat. She shrugged. "Damn thing should have opened." her voice was nonchalant, like it was the most normal thing in the world.

"You just had to - " Marcie spoke up for a second, before getting her bearings and quieting down again.

The purple-eyed werewolf grinned after Markus finished speaking. "Oh, another admirer of the culinary arts? It's a pleasure meeting you." she partially cupped her hand over her mouth so Marcie wouldn't hear. "My sister here is a bit of a w - u - s - s. She refuses to even take a bite out of some kraut. It just goes to waste."

“It is ‘Germans’ not ‘krauts’, young lady. Or 'Nazis', if you prefer.”

Carrie turned to see the refined, coldly beautiful woman address her. She sniffed the air for a few seconds, before wrinkling her face, as if she had inhaled a very unpleasant stench. "German - kraut, same thing." she rolled her eyes at the woman in clear disrespect.

She fell silent and listened with curiosity when M appeared and addressed them. They started announcing their names, and she listened attentively. Then the man who had jumped in the way to stop the elevator door she had sent hurling spoke -

"But at least half a dozen of the people in this room aren't old enough to vote, and a couple may not be old enough to drive. If we start throwing children into battle, we are debasing ourselves to the level of the Nazis and the Japanese. It's not right. It dishonors the flags we fight under, and it betrays the principles that we claim to defend. So I'd like to know what the military status of the children in this room is. I'd like to know just how desperate we are, and just how far we're prepared to go in order to win this war."

Marcie, having regained her composure, finally spoke. "What are we supposed to do?" she asked, looking over at the man. "The people of Europe are being oppressed and terrorized by the Wehrmacht. France, the Low Countries, Poland, Russia..." she glanced at the Slavic boy who had praised her and her sister, regretting she had been too embarrassed to properly thank him for his compliment. "Principles be damned if those poor people have to live a second longer under that mad German's control." she thought of the angry little man, Adolf Hitler who was the cause of all this trouble.

Carrie simply shrugged, unaffected by her sister's passionate speech. "War is war," she stated, leaving what she meant by that up for interpretation. People could justify it all they like. In the end, they needed war the same an addict needs opium. The US flag was no different to her than a swastika, fasces, or hammer & sickle. Simply a way for people to have war.

[Agritum]

Fleming stared at the congregated commandos with an ambivalent expression. They were quite the talkative bunch, and the mindset instilled by Sandhurst Academy influenced him to look down upon such amounts of careless, dubiously useful talk. Afterall, it was only helping in sowing seeds of distrust, rivalry and antipathy among the fledgling operators. But the more humane side of M's personality was somewhat warmed by such vivacity: these men, these soon-to-be living machines of death and destruction, had depth to them. In a war like that, forced to make the most desperate and morally grey choices to avoid an even more dire outcome, Fleming was relieved to know that some still had a balanced, almost intact moral compass. He didn't personally believe in Beecher's philosophy of right making might, but he still felt that the Minuteman had made a good case for it. Now that they were adopting the same occult tactics as the Axis, those ideals, that rightfulness, it was the only thing dividing them from the ruthless drones of the Greater Reich.

In regard to Willow's query on the exact date of her first deployement as a demolitions expert, Fleming lightly smiled and said "Soon". He was similarly polite and minimalistic with Anatoly and Clark's questions. "You can ask the human resources department, they do the selecting, Mister Belinkov." He replied to the Soviet, "Your combat record and good psychophysical aptitude test scores, along with a letter of warrantee by William Donovan himself, permitted your access in SHADOCOM, Harris" he handled the Yankee.

As he guessed, Milena's presence proved problematic. When Beecher rightfully asked him for delucidations on the presence of what amounted to be child soldiers, M was about to exlain that it was a necessary evil, something that had to be done to prevent other, mundane children from joining the fray, which was already happening in Red Russia. Fleming himself lothed that rationalization, as just as it could have been, but thankfully Lapierre and Dulac provided it in his stead. Dulac seemed one of the few stable members of the team, which pleased Fleming. That she was quite the stereotypical high-class femme didn't do anything but help it. He nostalgically remembered his womanizing past. No time for that anymore.

Eventually, he nodded to Beecher and Dulac's request to start the real briefing. To his chagrin, some team members were still late to the scene. He blamed it on the mildly military character of the whole organization. With an hand command, he signalled Lee to change the projector's reels, which Christopher promptly started doing.

Meanwhile, Elektra had clearly heard Jannie's request to have a personal talk with her and her brother. A bit suspicious, she glanced over to Abraham, trying to find a confirmation in his look.

"You heard her?"

"I did." Abraham replied, impassible.

"What to do?"

"We'll...talk, simple. We're not like grandpa, Elektra, and we should refrain from assuming that every vampire wanting to get close to us is about to drive its teeth in our neck. Which is something the Countess clearly wouldn't do, since she looks well nourished enough. Now let's listen."

"Okay..." Elektra replied, dubiously.

The projector sprung to life again, as the lights of the room shut off and its silvery ray hit the blank rectangular surface behind Fleming. Spelt out in capital letters, in simple font with a gray tinge, were the words: "OPERATION PATHFINDER: MISSION MATERIAL". Abraham gazed at the name in interest. It was pretty evocative, at least.

"Your next mission will take you to Warsaw, Occupied Poland." Fleming announced, as a map of the country showed up on the screen, highlighting Warsaw's position with a marker. " Two years ago, we received vague reports from the Polish Home Army about the presence of a peculiar individual among the ranks of the rival, unincorporated communist Polish People's Army: a seer, a fortune teller, someone who...knew the future, to put it simply. The vagueness, unsourcedness of the report and general unlikeness of the existance of such a person, given that not even espers have shown such capabilities, led us to dismiss it and archive it. Then this started happening, about a year ago. I apologize for some of the content."

Fleming clicked the button again. This time, the slide showed a photo of a dead Waffen-SS officer, slumped against a wall, his face distorted by the hideous mutilation that the average Britisher called a 'Glasgow Grin'. Abraham shuddered, as a primal feeling of fear crawled through the back of his bowels. "This photo was taken by the German military police, investigating the mysterious, bloody murder of a local SS platoon leader. We intercepted it thanks to Resistance infiltrators in the mail system."

Fleming clicked. Another brutal image popped up: the charred remains of an human being, his arm tied to a pipe with a set of heavy chains , holding an handsaw distorted by the heat. "This is the remains of a prominent logistics manager in the local SS command. The image wasn't taken by the police: apparently, his executor took the photo, mailing it to the local HQ with a note saying 'cutting through the arm would have been faster.' Abraham sweated cold. "God..."

"And there is a common pattern, too. Take a look."

Fleming clicked. The autopsy photos of several men showed up. Unlike they horrifingly mutilated victims of before, the dead Germans simply sported the signs of gunshot wounds to the head, heart or both, without further grievious desecrations of their bodies. "These are the corpses of ordinary Heer troopers assigned to the guard detail of a party functionary of the occupation government, murdered in October 1941. As you can see, the killer apparently didn't indulge into further violence against the soldiers. The functionary, on the other hand...well, I believe we have established the priorities of this person. If it is human at all."

Fleming clicked again, showing pictures of depots in flames, destroyed railway passes and severely damaged bridges. "The killer also indulges into sabotage against German strategical assets. How do we know this? He marks all of his actions with a logo". Fleming switched slides. Photos of the letters 'DCLXVI', either written in chalk or with a dark liquid, popped up on the screen.

"In case you didn't know," interjected Lee, "in Roman numerals, it means Sixty-Hundred-Sixty-Six. The Number of the Beast."

Fleming nodded. "The Beast of Warsaw is the moniker the killer adopted. Apparently, the German personnel stationed here has been triplicated in an attempt to counter the killings, without much results. Reports say that its identity and appearance is unknown, and speak of a precise shooter with an uncanny ability in developing elaborate traps and assassination plans. Some fear actual demonic activity in the city's streets. The local folks, who understandably admire such a figure, have instead described it as a "Fallen Guardian Angel". Notably, the Beast may be also behind several mysterious food and ammo deliveries to resistance hideouts, and may have employed the help of local streetchildren for his aims. He's almost like an one-man guerrilla army. So good, you could even bet that he can...see the future."

Fleming sat back. "As you can see, that's the correlation we made. Your mission, which I will soon explain more in-depthly, will be to go in Warsaw, track down the Beast, make contact, and possibly lift them away from the city. If the claims are true, this person could be pricelessly valuable to our war effort."

Fleming paused. "Question time again. Name and rank if any, as usual."

[Cylarn]

Harris could tell that Beecher was younger than him, but the fellow was wise beyond his years. He didn't know much about the Minuteman, but he seemed like a good, admirable sort of fellow that you'd see in one of the news reels, recruiting for the Army. However, he understood violence with knowledge that Harris had no idea that the Minuteman possessed, considering most of them had likely spent years in confinement until the war. Harris also agreed with Beecher on the fact that the young girls in SHADOCOM had no place on the front lines; he was still new to the formerly-hidden world of shadows. Like everyone else, he'd have to see how everything played out.

Then, it was time for M to speak. He shot down Clark's argument fairly quickly; he knew he was right, and Beecher had pretty much convinced him to remain with the unit. It seemed that their first order of business was to take place in Warsaw, tracking down some "special" fellow that had caused the Wehrmacht and the SS much grief. Willis looked on at the grisly photo evidence of the fellow, unflinching at the carnage before him. He wasn't frightened, but he knew that whatever powers this fellow possessed, they were indeed very destructive. At the mention of "demonic activity," Harris flinched. He was a Christian fellow, and as such, Satan's minions made him nervous. He believed in Heaven and Hell, and despite feeling that he was destined for the latter, he was still a bit nervous due to the mention of demonic forces. Allowing the USSR to join the Allies was a stretch; allowing Satan to join the Allies was just too far.

Harris stood to his feet, deciding to speak for the Christians.

"Captain Harris. If indeed this fella is some sort of cohort of Satan, or the Anti-Christ himself, I find it hard to believe that Allied High Command will invite such a fiend to join our ranks," he said, keeping his voice calm, but with a hint of outrage as he made eye contact with M. "He's dangerous; all Hellspawn are. I'm not much of a praying man, but I do believe in the Lord. I cant see this as a good idea, I'm sorry."

[Monfrox]

Willow grimaced at some of the images. Obviously, this was a bit much for war's excuse. As the briefing went on, she wondered if they were to assassinate or recruit this person. She got her answer, and yet something about it didn't make her feel any better, but when Harris started going off about religious views for this, she was a bit piqued.

"Y'know...we DO kinuh have this guy here." She thumbed to Markus. "I mean...honestly. There's little if any worse we can do by getting this other guy."

She took the crucifix out to show him while still keeping it around her neck and flipping her switchblade out.

"Really, if yer not prepared, there's no one ta blame but yerself."

Willow put her anti-Occult tokens back, lest she appear overly distrusting of the others. Well, distrust of Markus was entirely justified as she was not looking to be a meal at any point in her life.