Nine Swords

Katja hurries up to Jennet and look at her with a concerned look.

"Are you okay? What has happened? Can I help you somehow?" She gently place her hand on Jennet's shoulder.

Izumi walked in her office and saw her phone resting on the desk. She cursed herself. It's been there since the previous afternoon and the batteries were already rather low back then when she was interrupted by some petty detail that needed all her attention... Why on Earth did people kick up such a big fuss over little details when people with more than valid concerns were hesitant to come forth, that would remain forever a mystery.

She picked up the phone and a long sigh acknowledged what she was fearing: the batteries were out. She cussed, half-voice, and opened the drawer where she was expecting to find her charger...

"Oh for feck's sake!" she shouted, throwing her arms up in the air. She ran back home, a short dash, the phone in her pocket, and plugged it in. A few minutes later, the phone came back to life and she proceeded to see how many calls she had missed. Most of them were in the "business as usual" category, until one message, IDed as coming from the Edwards laboratory, came up.

"Ms. Kotone-Marsh? Izumi Kotone-Marsh? Jennison Edwards has you on her final directives regarding the item she was storing in the Edwards Arms labs. Ms. Edwards has been killed in a break-in. My name is Pat. I'll be here at Edwards if you need to reach me. We have no intel on the status of...whatever she was storing."

Izumi pulled the phone away from her ear, staring at it. After a few seconds, she saved the message and dialed Tom's number, cussing under her breath, in French, including all the religious furniture usually found in a church, as per cultural definition of swear words.

Jenn felt a little a little more sane just at the warmth of Katja's hand on her shoulder, the human contact.

She tried to remember what she'd seen at Edwards, but only the brief flash of perception when the spell sleep had been lifted was clear. The rest was a fog. She could remember seeing them taking the box though.

"I need to get back to Edwards. They took the artifact, Kat. At least I think they did. I only woke up at the last second, when they shot me." She'd adopted 'Kat' as a nickname for Katja without thinking about it. If she did think about it, she could probably blame Wes' pet name for Katja.

She looked down and realized she had no weapon, no focus... "Kat, you don't happen to have a spare gun on you?" She reached out and tugged the woman's arm, urging her to follow as she headed out across the park in the direction of Edwards. "Or a mobile? I need to call people." She didn't stop walking as she asked.

The copper-and-spoiled meat smell of blood would lead Wes to the alley next to the car park, across from Edwards. Closer inspection would offer the more foul tang of voided bowels and all the other joys that come with a corpse, or, in this case, two corpses.

The bodies of two men lay in the alley, both shot once, in the head, from the front. The bodies are wearing black uniforms with incorporated body armor and masks.

"I live close and have spare there. We can run there under the time you make the phone calls." Katja picked up her phone and gave it to Jen. "Call Izumi first. She has to know, and the same goes for Thanasi. She started to hurry out from the park, throw her full cup of tea in a wastebasket, took Jennets free hand and started to jog.

Tom's phone buzzed its way off of the bedside table, landing with a soft thump on the plush carpeting. K-9 sniffed it experimentally, and Kat swatted at it. It stopped moving, which pleased the cats. They both walked away with tails held high in triumph.

Tom looked down at one last stubborn finger and jammed the bone back into place. Then he grabbed the maintenance ladder in the elevator shaft and began to haul himself up. In retrospect, maybe it wasn't the best idea to smash up the lift, but damn had it felt good. He pulled himself up the ladder at a good pace, pretty much flinging himself up two or three rungs at a time. To anyone looking at the lobby floor elevator doors, it probably looked like a scene from a zombie flick with Tom's bloodied hand burst up into sight and hauled his body back into the lobby.

He pointed a stern finger at Pat. "There's nothing dangerous left down there. Go tend do your men." He swallowed a quip about maybe doing his job better next time. The man didn't need that right now. He stalked towards the exit, then stopped short of the metal detector. "I'm borrowing these by the way," he said, waving the weapons at Pat. "I trust you don't mind." Tom wasn't sure he needed to sound quite so threatening with that last statement, but it didn't matter anyway. He didn't wait to hear the answer before turning and exiting the building.

Wes knelt to check on the two bodies. After taking a more than cursory glance at them both, he snapped a few pictures with his cell phone's camera. Then, taking a tissue from his pocket to avoid leaving finger prints, he removed their masks and took a couple of quick pictures of their faces.

He frowned and considered the evidence at hand. First, they had been shot up close and in the head. Second, they were in the alley and not near the front doors where the apparent full frontal assault had taken place. Finally, their garb suggested that they were clearly professionals and not some innocent bystanders that had 'seen too much'. So, he mused, if the good guys didn't kill them on their way in, someone else must have gunned them down on the way out.

As he stood and made his way to the front door, he felt Jenn's presence more clearly. He signed in relief. While being Gaia blessed certainly went along way to providing near invulnerability, it didn't guarantee it. There were plenty of nasty little tricks to keeping bee people down for good if you knew them. Knowing that she was relatively close and apparently, from the little he could sense, relatively unharmed gave him a bit more peace of mind.

As he walked forward, he saw Tom in the doorway and shouted to get his attention.

"Tom, Jenn's...OK." he nodded to the man meaningfully.

Jenn jogged along with Kat, grateful she had speed dial for Izumi. She got voice mail, of course... though she couldn't know it was because Izumi was trying to reach Tom. Jenn left a message:

"Izumi, it's Jenn. There's been a break-in at Edwards. They got the artifact. No feckin' clue who 'they' are. On my way back there now with Katja."

That sent, she started trying to key in Tom's number as she ran. This took about five tries. Finally... voice mail. Jenn about threw Kat's phone across the park... she refrained though, and left a message:

"Tom, it's me. I need you. Someone broke in to Edwards. Call...er, Katja. This number."

---

Kat opened one eye from where she napped, within striking distance of her slain prey-phone. When the prey moved again, she set one paw on it and let out a low roooooooooooooooooow... until it stopped, suitably terrified of her awesome felinity.

She fell back asleep. It's what she did.

---

Jenn pulled up Wes' speed-dial on Kat's phone, letting it ring...

Tom stared at Wes for a good thirty seconds. Honestly trying to register him as friend or foe. It finally clicked in his brain, and he let his tense posture drop. "Yeah, I was down in the basement." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a few dark hairs, "Found her hair, figured the bees patched her up." He stuffed the hair back into his pocket, grumbling something about Izumi's damn cell.

Speaking of cells.

Tom pointed to Wes' pocket. "You're ringing."

Standing still was getting to him. He worked his hands in and out of fists as he stood, trying to work the adrenaline out of his system.

Wes blinked down and fished the cell out of his pocket. He glanced at the number and saw 'Kitty Kat' come up on the caller ID. He almost let it go to voice mail, figuring she was just checking in, but since she usually texted him rather than calling, he answered.

He tried to get in a word, but it was impossible. So, he handed the phone to Tom in defeat.

"I think it's for you, or rather would be if she knew you were here." Wes muttered as he waited for Tom to take the phone.