Psychics and Snipers
An "individual of interest" with numerous known occult and cult-related dealings with known and now dead heretics had arranged to pick up something of importance and bring it into Lausanne. We had an excellent intercept point along the Route de Berne highway at Chalet-a-Gobet.
The village - if you could call it that - is composed of a post office, a pizzeria, a gas station, and stables for six horses and riding trails in the surrounding forest. But it was almost 1 in the morning; everything was closed when we introduced ourselves.
The night was dark, and Russell proved his mettle as a sniper: His first shot blew out a tire and forced them to pull over. Once they had rattled to a stop, he started picking them off. Those that made it clear of the vehicle made a desperate break towards the forest. Only two of them made it that far.
The Cabal's resident psychic – Sarah -was a comparatively weak precognitive that could see about 30 to 40 seconds into the future, but only when subjected to a certain level of physical and emotional stress. However, in combat, every second can be a lifetime, and she'd saved more lives than she was years old in her few years with the Cabal.
Crouched side by side, backs to a fallen tree trunk, the heretics were making their last stand. We were the bait; Russel picked off yet another while the rest moved to flank them. Sarah blinked, pushed me over, and joined me prone in the dirt. The clattering cough of a submachine gun pulped the tree we had been sheltering behind. "Eyes open, junior," she gave me a mischievous half-smile, "Can't protect you all the time."
Standing a little over five feet tall, her lightly tanned skin seemed to glow with its internal fire. Her shoulder-length hair was a bushy mess of static electricity-charged hair. I wasn't the most junior member of the Cabal, but she still insisted on calling me "junior."
Just like that, the night's killing was suddenly over and done. We had our prize, transported in the mother of all cliches: A stainless steel attache case manacled to the wrist of one of the corpses. A flick of my wrist parted the links of the handcuff, and with our prize secured, we cleansed the scene.
We grabbed wallets and fingerprints, cleared away the shell casings we could find, and then ashed the bodies before returning home. There can be no explanation or justification for the families of the deceased. These pawns gave up their humanity when they started to serve something alien, mutant, demonic, or some combination thereof.
"The triumphant return" were the first words uttered by the informal leader of the Cabal's intelligence network: Kirsten Ammer. She was taller than average, standing just a hair under six feet, and was perhaps one of three women who had been in my life that could look me straight in the eye.
She kept what was usually shoulder-length red hair tied back and out of the way. The pair of haptic gloves clipped to her belt were to keep her fingers from smudging touchscreens and interact with the virtual interfaces that seemed to grow out of her environment.
She handled anything that required a computer, including perimeter defences, satellite uplinks and word processing. She'd remotely switch off the hot water for the showers and the coffee maker when provoked.
"And we return bearing gifts," I replied as Russell handed over the case. It also fell to Kirsten to crack open the case without destroying its contents. She would also have the job of getting the names and identities of our heretics run through the Legion's massive database for cross-referencing and indexing. More than one investigation had led somewhere because of her efforts.
As usual, Lukas called us for a quick debrief on the night's action and the things that had not gone entirely to plan. "No plan survives contact with the battlefield or reality," said Lukas. Initially, we were supposed to stage a car accident with recoverable bodies, "So what went wrong out there?" he asked.
Russell shrugged as he reclined in his chair, "I only know what I saw through the scope, but they got out, checked the tire, realized it was a gunshot and then ran for it." He was right: It was just sheer dumb luck that things turned out the way they did.
Chalet-a-Gobet at eleven at night is isolated. At one in the morning, haunted graveyards have more activity. We had six dead and ashed heretics, and the package was recovered without casualties. Russell Abraham James Carter. American, former LAPD SWAT Sniper, Legionnaire for six years, working with Lukas for the past four years.
He is an arrogant son of bitch who has authority issues and can't stop bragging about how many women - some half his age - he has lured between his sheets. He is prone to retelling his tales of conquest with pornographic detail. I keep telling him to write a "bodice-ripper" novel or two. He ran a hand through his close-cropped black hair, streaked orange for some unknown reason and drained his drink. Nobody had anything else to add, and the meeting broke up.
While living with the Cabal, I kept a separate apartment. It's part of being a shifter that we're comfortable having our own space - like cats with a preferred sleeping spot. I used the place regularly for various things. The cleaning crew did their job, including leaving a tree's worth of junk mail, including multiple fliers for some carnival in Ouchy.
I stretched out on the bed and contemplated what to do with the rest of the night. Sleep was not a temptation because this had been the first live operation in a few weeks. I considered going out to hunt, but I'd been doing that for weeks: Slim pickings at the moment. It was a Friday, I realized, and that meant she'd be there because she was there every Friday.
Lausanne has about ten mainstream clubs that are just that: Mainstream. My taste in music is anything but that as I headed to the small, less well-known bar with a dance floor catered to a specific sub-genre of music: The Night-Owl.
There are dozens of these semi-converted ramshackle unsafe hangouts down side streets and cul-de-sacs. Like all of them, this one is, at the best of times, a pathetic excuse for a smoky dance club with overpriced, almost naked hookers and cheap watered-down drinks. The music was driven out of the speakers with a pounding base called "Pound."
The place was packed as I stepped through the door, where music, heat, and darkness reigned. Smoke oiled its way around the fixtures of the low ceiling. Some of it was from cigarettes of brands and types too numerous to tell, but most of it was chocolate flavoured from the smoke machine in a corner. Lights of every colour accented by strobe effects flashed around the room.
The warehouse was anything but dark. Most people were on the dance floor, gathered in circles around a trio. Of the three, the glow stringer made a massive impact on the audience, taking control of the crowd. I recognized the mane of fiery red hair as the pair of glow sticks tied to the ends of a fine twine twirled around Sarah.
Lights twirled around her, following the music beat and her body's motions. Her moves and steps put her in a class of her own, and the growing audience was a testament to that as she executed dance moves flawlessly.
There was no fixed pattern to her steps, just the beat of the music and an almost animal instinct to guide her ballet of light. For several entrancing minutes, her face was illuminated partly by her smile and the glow sticks and disco lights that flickered and flashed to a machine gun beat.
It was purely her, and I'm sure the adrenalin rush had triggered her latent abilities and revealed that I was in the crowd and just how the night was going to end. She was, in many ways, still a kid at heart who wanted to do nothing but make love and party. It happens to everyone at some point.
The difference was that she would give in to the indulgence and not suppress it.
I was amongst the innermost ring of spectators as her performance came to a close. She flourished as she wound the sticks in on their strings like yoyos before she finished with a twirl and caught them in outstretched hands, making them vanish as applause and cheers broke out.
The crowd parted for her, even as the music changed – a different song with the same driving beat and volume as she made her way to the bar, "Enjoy the show?"
I nodded, "You've got some serious moves," I tossed back my shot and signalled the bartender, "But I've still got a few that you've never seen." I met her glare with a raised eyebrow, and she laughed before tossing hers back.
We piled the shot glasses and left a pyramid six glasses wide at the base. I'd had two for every shot she had, and I was barely feeling the alcohol. She wasn't drunk, either. As we staggered through the empty streets of Lausanne towards my apartment, we were a merry happy pair.