Anticipation and Promises

It’d been two weeks since Wade had last shown his troublesome face. Still, the City was far from peaceful; even though the victims of his explosive attack had now been patched back to health, the houses still lay in rubble as a painful reminder of how the ease which with everyone’s safety had been violated. Everyone seemed more at ease with the detector spell hanging over the City though, at least ensuring them that no stranger could wander into their midst unnoticed. And to be fair, most vampires of the City had outlived worst threats to their health than this, most of which they had to tolerate walking amongst them.
In conclusion, Wade’s antics had left a disease in the City, but not so much with its every-day inhabitants as with some higher-ups.

Sir Axel for instance, felt his worries growing and growing with every day that passed without anything happening. This person, he reasoned, this lunatic who’d done all these things had seemed absolutely out of it. He seemed impulsively aggressive, and aimlessly determined… he wouldn’t just stop like this…?! He frowned, phasing up and down the living room, trying to understand why things suddenly seemed so peaceful. He didn’t have much to go by, as he’d never really met this Wade but… he didn’t needed to, as he knew someone so very much alike…! ((guess who?? )))
It just didn’t make any sense. People like this he knew to be relentless; they don’t things with any concrete goals in mind… people like this did bad things just for the hell of it! And more important, people like this didn’t just stop – they lacked the inhibition, more often than not, and in the case of Wade, it seemed clear he had little (if anything) to lose on top of that. So why stop?

Valdez’ pondering had stopped already. He simply passed by the window once or twice, an maliciously eager to see whatever would come next, exactly. Come on, he mused to himself impatiently, get on with it. I know myself to be a lot except patient, and I don’t expect you to be any different.

One week earlier…

“Come on, baby…” Wade sighed in a naggy voice, rolling over on his back – the bed creaking heavily from under him, “why do we need all these stupid humans?” He turned his head to Alene, smiling enthusiastically; “we can do this, just the two of us!”
Alene gave him a glance, then sighed and replied calmly; “I told you, my dearest, it’s too dangerous.”
“I’m not scared!” Wade excplaimed immediately, pointing at himself demonstratively.
“I know, I really do, my love,” Alene replied in a soothing voice, turning on her side to stroke his hair, “but you mustn’t underestimate some of these people. They are forces to be reckoned with.”
Wade let out a snorting laugh, which lead out into a loud, hysterical laugh. Alene just lay by his side, observing him with a mixture of endearment and objective interest. As his laughter died out she smiled her sweetest smile at him, and asked him in her most fragile yet persuasive of voices: “my dear, promise me you’ll do as I explained? Please, you have to promise me right now.”
At this, Wade seemed to melt a little, his hard and satirical expression softening to an empathic and hopeful smile; “and then… we’ll be together forever? Like you said?”
Alene nodded, still keeping up her big bambi-eyes. “Do this for me, ,” she whispered, and then she pressed herself onto him and closed her eyes, “and I promise you’ll be inside my heart for all eternity.”

Back to the present...

And that is how we arrived at the point where, one seemingly peaceful night in the City of the Damned, a hell gate opened in the middle of a town square, and about a dozen of humans wandered into the vampire city.

They weren't the most healthy or sane-looking of folks, which probably had something to do with the fact that they were part of a small, underground Satanic cult. This aspect had made it easy for Alene to wander into their midst and get their fullest attention, merely by usage of hellgate. She convinced them that if they would do as she said, they would become a part of hell to (the distinguishing here being that they probably wouldn't be the demons they imagined themselves to be in that scenario). All they had to do was to get vampires to give into their 'dark instincts', aka to attack and kill them. After proving Satan the great favour of turning these gone-soft vampires back into the killers they originally were, all the Cult members would be revived as creatures of evil. (Yeah, it's a big great bullshit story, but admittedly, people who are misguided enough to be devil-worshippers will easily belief all kinds of crap as long as you make it sound sinister enough). Also note-worthy was that every last part of these misguided cult-members were teenagers, no older than 17 at best.

Once the entire cult was inside the City, Alene smiled at them from her side of the hellgate. "You remember what to do?" she asked sweetly. The leader of the cult confirmed, and she quickly closed the gate behind them. The cult members quickly spread, each going their own way.

After this had happened, and after Alene had closed the hellgate behind them, she let out an entertained chuckle; "fools."

"They seriously think they'll be revived just for spreading a little chaos?" Wade mused along, grinning viciously.

Alene shrugged, still grinning. "Well, what I said is not completely untrue... I mean, that city has seriously gone goody-two-shoe." Her expression darkened as she added, in between unpleasent chuckles; "I wonder if the City will be able to upkeep it's so-called moral values after 12 poor, desperate, misunderstood human children turn up stone dead..."



And unfortunatly, it looked like Alene wouldn't be proved wrong; the first cult member, an uninhibited 15-year-old boy, had already found himself in the clutches of a vampire woman. He hadn't left her much choice, running up to her and litteraly pressing his neck and wrists under her nose. She'd tried to push him away but it quickly proved futile. The worst part was that Alene had given the cult members a tiny bit of her blood, through blood transfusion, which caused their blood to be even more appealing than usual. And as I'm explaining all of this, the vampire woman has already bitten the poor, foolish boy.

An alarm went off not in the City but in the house closest to the City. The house of Melodie, the president of the City. Someone had entered the City that didn't belong there. Melodie fortunately had still been awake still busy with keeping an eye on the governments to make sure they really didn't expect anything. She got up grabbed a crucifix and a botttle of water, just in case a demon was who had entered, and teleported herself into the City.
She appeared on the town square and scanned her surroundings and saw the group teenaged humans all but slitting their wrists to get the vampires to drink from them.
"Okay suiciders either you get the fuck out of this cave right now," she yelled at the teenagers raising an aura of black magic to surround her, "or I will assist you with that."

The four that were trapped in Melodie's black magic aura.

"Fine!" of them shouted back at her tauntingly, "we'll just come back again!"

"Yeah!" another joined in, "you can't stop us!"

With that, the four of them got all ryled up, shouting and stomping their feet. Finally one just rushed towards the black aura, screaming something like she might as well die like that, only to find herself surprised to go right through it. Not having expected to just pass through, she tripped over her own feet and landed right in the arms of a vampire man standing by, watching the whole thing happening in confusion. Both didn't seem to know what to do at that point.

The other cultivists seemed encouraged though, to see they could just run off again, and happily used that oppertunity to do so. Shouting loudly, they each hurried over to the vampire crowd standing by, ready to throw themselves at them.

The vampire crowd had mixed reactions; some backed away, already having seen how the humans fueled with demon-blood could affect them. Others didn't really understand what was going on, and they just stood by rather confused.
The girl who'd already fallen into the vampires arm used this moment of confusion to punch the vampire who'd caught her in the face; this resulting in her fist bleeding out, rather than doing any damage to the vampire's face. It was like a ripple went through the nearby crowd; every vampire within a 10 foot distance immediatly went wide-eyed, staring at the blood tripling over the girl's lower arm, trying best to fight their instincts.

(and unless Melodie interferes, they will strike!)

Already having expected the teenagers to be difficult, even if only for the fact that they where teenagers, Melodie had already muttered a spell under her breath. When one girl ran towards the aura and her and ended up in the arms of a nearby vampire and the others ran off into the crowd other nearby vampires she sighed.
She raised one hand and making a come over here gesture while saying in a clear voice: "Venire." Causing the teenagers to be pulled away from the vampires and just before Melodie. Once they where in front of her she made an incircling gesture saying: "Capere." A bubble appeared around the group of teenagers, a bubble that no nonmagical creature had a change of breaking. Sound, air and with that scent could still pass through the bubble, but nothing physical.
"How many of you are here," she then asked them in a demanding voice, "and don't even think of telling me off or lying to me. I have endured centuries of torture that go beyond your worst nightmares and don't think I won't use it on any one of you just because you are children. And also don't think I will let you die before I have my answers. Now ANSWER ME."

The cultivists seemed a bit out of it due to the magic bubble surrounding them, and even more because they hadn't reached their goal of extremely theatrical suicide yet again. Still, once Melodie started making threatening speeches they seemed unresponsive; they all just stared at her uncertainly.

Finally one of them started laughing, soft at first but louder then. The others joined in after a while, in the same taunting tone.
"Go ahead!" the first one to start laughing exclaimed, his tone and expression somewhere in between victorious and hysterical. He then gave Melodie a challenging, defying look, which the other three quickly copied.

In the mean time, several others had spread through the City.

Melodie let out another sigh, she had really hoped that it wouldn't have to come to this. She raised her hand again and this time she clenched it into a fist just as she said: "Pati." All the teenagers in the bubble would suddenly feel like there was fire running through their veins. While that was going on she looked at the vampire crowd nearby and asked: "Can one of you with excellent selfcontrol either track down the rest of this group and or get Sir A to help out."
She didn't wanted to say Sir Axel's full name just in case the teens where bugged.

As Melodie cast her spell, all four of the teenagers screamed out in pain and fright. None of them expected anything like this to happen, and they were quite overcome. One started sobbing, two others weren't far behind, only the one who'd started laughing and tauning in the first place seemed to endure rather well - though it surely didn't help make him look any more sane.

In the mean time, some vampires nodded at Melodies' request, and they hurried off. Their expression were still uncertain, as none of them were explicitly certain their self-control would suffice for the situation at hand.

Sir Axel in the mean time, several streets up from there, had caught one of the run-a-mock teens. Still groaning from all the 'foul' language the boy had called out to him - Alene having informed him of the weaknesses of angels - Sir Axel was holding him now with his hand over his mouth. He quickly gave him a rather hard tap to his head, knocking the teen out instantly. He felt bad for possibly injuiring him, but that still outranked having the boy run around, considering he'd cut his entire arm open, in doing so basically reducing himself to a (litteral) walking buffet.

"Sir Axel!" one of the vampires sent by Melodie called out to him. They needn't say anymore though, as Sir Axel read the rest of the useful information in their thoughts. "Got it," he replied in a stern voice, then he flew off towards Melodie with the unconcious boy in his arms.

"Melodie!" he called out as soon as he saw her. He wasn't entirely sure what to say then, noticing the bubble, already including several of the others - relief, admittedly, but a strange relief nonetheless. After a moment he snapped out of it though, and urgently informed her; "there's at least 7 more! The plan is to spread out, so we ((that being the non-vampiric creatures in the City)) can't stop them all in time, before they can do harm."

"Make that six!" a voice called out from behind Sir Axel. Ali came walking up the square in one of her 'wonderland' dresses, a look of death in her eyes and holding one of the teenagers in such a way that she was nearly dislocating his shoulder. Melodie raised her brow at the sight of that, not really having expected that she would be so capable of resisting the blood streaming from the boys wrist.
She dropped the bubble for a few moments and 'gathered' the two newly arrived teens and put them all in a bubble. After which she also stopped the torture of the earlier captured teens. Then she looked back at Ali wanting to ask how she had managed such control, but Ali already answered: "I don't take kindly to being manipulated in any kind of way."
"Okay so there are still at least six suicidal teens running around in the City," Melodie summed up, "Ali if you can handle it, I think we all should all go in a different direction and try to track down at least two each. When you've got them come back to the square and when I'm back I'll put them in the bubble along with these. Okay?"

(if Sir A agrees they all run of in a different direction ;P )

"Alright," Sir Axel agreed, with a serious face. Yet, before running off he announced to every vampire who was still standing there; "everyone head inside. That way you'll decrease your chances of running into them, and we'll have a greater chance of finding them! If you find any one them, let yourself be known; make a noise, shout. One of us will come to the sound. Please don't try to handle the situation yourselves, these people are not with reason!"

He then nodded to Ali and Melodie, notifying them he was ready if they were.

As they would spread up, here is what would happen: Melodie would find one girl knocking one the door of a house frantically, demanding the vampires inside to let her in. If she would adress her, she would curse in several colours, and then try to physically attack Melodie.

Ali would also find one boy, a very young looking fellow, just hiding in a dark alley. He simply looked scared, and very unhappy to be there, and wouldn't put up any fight.

(please keep next post to dealing with them, then have this end with them hearing screams from the town square, where the bubble is, and heading back there)

As they ran into different directions Melodie was the first to come across one of the teens. She didn't bothered trying to reason with her seeing as that had already proven to not work. So instead she just walked up to the girl and grabbed the arm that she was using to beat on the door.
"Time to come with me," she said and started dragging the girl with her, ignoring her foul language. But when she started to get physical she ran a small current through her so that she could just walk but that was all.
In the meantime Ali had found the little boy in the alley. At first she had planned on being no nicer then she had been to the guy she had captured earlier, but then she saw the fear in his eyes. Having dealed with too much fear in her life she sympathised and just held out a hand to him.
"Don't worry I'm not going to harm you," she said in a comforting voice, "as long as you wont harm me or try to force me into drinking your blood that is."
Just then the sounds from the square reached both Melodie's and Ali's ears. Melodie just started running, dragging the teen along with her, not caring if in the process she would get hurt. Ali on the other hand picked up the scared boy and then started running, arriving shortly after Melodie on the square.

As they would all arrive at the town square, they would find the screams origins to (possibly) be different then they expected; it hadn’t been vampires notifying they’d found evil humans, but rather human notifying them they’d found an evil vampire.
So yes, in case you hadn’t guessed already, Valdez had joined the youngsters in their miserable company. Alongside him were the remains of the young man who used to be the cult leader (not to be confused with the guy who’d started laughing after being caught by Melodie, he’s still safely inside the bubble), who had been torn apart to such an extent it’d become hard to recognize him as a human being in the first place. He’d been dragged along by Valdez in a circle around the bubble, leaving behind him an apparent trail of blood and severed intestines.

As Valdez noticed Ali, Melodie and Sir Axel arriving, each from a different direction, he looked around at them with a sadistic grin, then wiped some of the spilled blood from his mouth and replied in the inner-most sarcastic voice: “and here I thought you didn’t like me. But look, you got me a present.” He turned his gaze back to the teenagers in the bubble and gestured towards them; “lunch.”

“Valdez!” Sir Axel exclaimed forcefully, “leave them alone! They’ve been set up!”

Valdez let out a mocking laugh; “o Axel, don’t underestimate the brats. You should've seen them, they were all so proud of their little purpose here… especially this one.” He held up the (barely recognizable) corpse of the cult leader, “kept going on and on of how he was going to turn all us ‘goody-two-shoe vampires’ here evil again, in the name of the great Satan.” He snorted again, then threw the body away from him, where it landed in (mostly) one part, accompanied by the unpleasant, splattering, croaking sound of torn flesh and broken bones hitting the pavement. Valdez grinned at the appalled faces of several of the cult members within the bubble, then turned at Axel with an insultingly innocent smirk: “I’m just here to show them what a great job they’ve done.”

After a moment of facepalming, Sir Axel was going to reply, just when lady Victoria showed up. She was dragging a KO girl after here, an annoyed expression on her face; "here," she said in an irritated tone, dropping the girl on the ground nearby the bubble - not really trying to make for a gentle landing.

She looked around, about to ask what exactly was going on, when she noticed Valdez and the rips of body he was holding. Pulling an unimpressed face at him she sighed; "ugh, honestly Valdez, who are you to correct anyone on table manners?"

Before Valdez had a chance to retort, Sir Axel interrupted: "OK!" he shouted over everyone's head, "putting aside for a moment how incredibly disturbing this is...! There's still at least two of them out there! Can we focus on that?"

As they arrived on the scene neither Ali nor Melodie had expected what they had found. Seeing the remains of the cult leader Melodie was glad she had kept the other teenagers in the bubble safe from themselves and people like Valdez. Ali held the young boy a little closer to her, not planning on letting Valdez get his hands on him as well.
It was when Lady Victoria entered the scene and tossed an unconscious girl nearby the bubble that Melodie made a swiping motion 'tossing' Valdez aside and away from the bubble. After that she quickly shoved the girl that she had captured towards the bubble, dropping it for just a second and then forming a new slightly bigger one so that the newly captured teens where safely inside. All expect for the boy that Ali was still holding protectively in her arms. Melodie couldn't deny that she didn't like it, but Ali seemed to have it under control and determined to protect him so she decided to let it be for now.
"Agreed," she agreed with Sir Axel before snapping Valdez in his bubble so that he could do no more damage, "let's track the last of them down."
Ali looked at the boy in her arms, wondering if he knew where they could find the others and if he did if he would tell them.
"Do you know where we could find them?" she asked him, figuring that Sir Axel could read it in his mind if he didn't answered them truthfully.

The boy looked up at Ali with big eyes, hessitant for a moment: "you won't hurt me?" he asked in a soft voice. His eyes turned to the side, to the other cult member who were still in the bubble; "no one will hurt me if I tell?" he specified.

The teens in the bubble reacted to this with violent outcries, shouting curses and threats at him, and sketshing quite vivid images of what they'd do it he'd snitch. Valdez chuckled from inside his bubble, amused at their blind outrage.

"No one will hurt you," Sir Axel assured the boy in a calm voice, stepping in between him and the bubble, shielding him from sight with his wings. "But please tell us before anyone else gets hurt."

The boy hessitated for a moment longer, then looked up at Ali, as if finding safety with her, then whispered; "I don't know where they're now exactly... but Amber and Tara are still out there." He looked up at Sir Axel for a moment, then quickly away again when their eyes met; "they're looking for you."

"For me?" Sir Axel replied. He then quickly read the rest in the boy's head, but let him finish his story nonetheless.

"Yes," the boy continued, "they wanted to take down an angel. They've got all sorts of unholy relics on them."

After winching at the word 'unholy' Sir Axel nodded; "I see." He then looked around, at Ali, Melodie and lady Victoria - hoping one of them would decide to go after the two mentioned girls (considering they were especially equiped to fight him, it seemed unwise for him to do it). He didn't really want to say it out loud though, not feeling like reminding any of the cult members - or Valdez for that matter - of the unpleasent effects unholy words could have on him.

Melodie was glaring at the trapped teens as they yelled at the boy in Ali's arms. She was thinking about doing something about their treats when the boy mentioned that the two that where left where hunting for an angel. Her head snapped up immediately a worried look on her face.
"If they are looking for an angel they'll probably already be in the castle by now," she said not really understanding why Sir Axel or Valdez where so calm after the news, "We need to find them before they find your half vampire half angel children."

Only just now facing that realisation - being far too occupied with his own amusement, Valdez slammed his fists against the side of the bubble that was holding him; "witch!" he shouted, "let me out!"

Sir Axel in turn did seem a bit calmer. Then again, in his case he'd actually been rather paniced all the time now, which he'd been hiding rather well, so in this instance he may not have seemed much different on the outside. Fortunatly, he had told Elisabeth to stay inside with the children, and keep them safe - and he trusted her with that. Besides which, the castle was a hard place to find your way in if you didn't know your way around... they'd probably just get lost. And also, the castle was swarmed with vampires, who'd surely try to stop them... The cult members might get bitten (or worse) in the process, which was unfortunate, but they'd now arrived at the point where that'd seemed to become inevitable anyway.

His trail of thought was interrupted by the sound of gunfire in the distance, from the direction of the Palace. 'Okay, NOW it's ime to panic!'

With a quick gasp and without another word Sir Axel flew off in that direction.
After him came lady Victoria, spurting off harder than she'd ran in the last century or so, muttering foul words under her breath.

Melodie ignored Valdez, he had already done enough damage without a good reason. Now that he had a good reason she was VERY much not planning on letting him out. She was still surprised by how calm Sir Axel still was about all of this. These children clearly had been well prepared, who said they didn't have a map of the castle.
That is when the gunshot echoed through the cave and Melodie started fearing the worst was still yet to come. She ran after Lady Victoria and Sir Axel, using magic to increase her speed. Ali hessitated for a moment uncertain whether she should go with the boy still in her arms or if she should first bring him in safety. Deciding that the boy might still have some valuable information she ran after the others still holding him.
"Outside of guns kind of weapons do they all have?" she asked him while she was running.

Inside the castle the sound of the gunshot had woken Mercedes up. The fact that Valdez was missing didn't help with easing her mind. She immediately went to the childrens rooms praying that they where both there and both safe.

As they all hurried off - accompanied by Valdez loudly screaming: "if anything happens to my children, I swear, I'll tear down this City brick by brick!"
The teenager in the bubble opposite him let out loud, mocking laughs at him for this, obviously feeling quite safe in their bubble. This lead to an interesting situation that might be turned back to later.

When Ali asked the boy what other weapons they had, he looked down and didn't respond. Sir Axel had already seen it in his mind though, just before he'd flown off, and it wasn't good.
He seered down to Melodie and informed her in an urgent tone; "they've got semi-automatic machine guns, gass bombs!" The panic now had become very appearant, visable on his face and clear in his voice.

As they neared the front gates to the Palace, a loud bang sounded, followed by a big cloud of black smoke.

"And explosives..." lady Victoria added in a dry voice. She was running closely behind them, an intense gaze in her eyes. "STOP!" she suddenly shouted, halting herself (though her speed caused her to slide forward for a couple of metres).

Sir Axel stopped as well, though a lot more abrupt due to his wings. "What?!" he asked impatiently.

"There's another one in the entrance hall, a man. He's got the explosives. He's waiting for you to come in...! I saw it, if you go in there, you'll get blown to pieces."
She turned to Melodie: "he's not expecting anyone with magical abilities..."

Somewhat out of breath Melodie came to a stop besides Lady Victoria, wondering why the hell they had had to stop. The combination of suicidale teens with dangerous and effective weapons had put her very much on edge and in no mood for sympathy. Ali arrived just when Lady Victoria said that the man by entrance was expecting Sir Axel, but not someone capable of magic.
"Time for some black magic then," Melody answered and ran head first into the cloud of black smoke.
Ali looked at the boy again, hoping to get an answer out of him this time, "Do they know their way around the castle?"
Before the boy would have a change to answer though a loud scream could be heard, but it didn't belong to a woman. The black smoke dissapeared and the man with explosives was sitting inside a bubble in fetal postion crying and whimpering as he was living through an illusion of his worst fears. Melodie stood behind the bubble a no nonsens look on her face, "Entrance hallway is clear for as far as I can tell."

Not being given much time to argue, Sir Axel watched Melodie spurt ahead of them. For a moment he was concerned about the less than sympathetic mood she was in, but then again he couldn't really be bothered himself, what with 99% of his brain capacity working on preventing a mental breakdown.

After the scream, and when the smoke had disappeared, Sir Axel rushed over to Melodie and the young adult gone fetal. The he slammed on the bubble and demanded to know: "where have the others gone?!"
The young man didn't really seem capapble of getting any words out of his mouth, but fortunatly enough was readible in his mind. After getting enough information, which was about a split second later, Sir Axel straightened his back and turned to the inside of the palace, looking at the broad stairs in front of them: "the two girls are inside here somewhere. They've split up."

More gunfire, as well as screams sounded from a floor above.

Meanwhile, back at Ali, the boy whispered: "we didn't have any maps. But they do know most important people live on the higher floors."

When Melodie heard that the girls had split up she couldn't suppress an annoyed sigh, "This would be easier if Robyn was here." She looked up at the ceiling when more gunshots came from the floor above them. Ali looked up worried as well, she hadn't been in the castle much but she knew it could be like a maze.
"I think we should split up as well," Melodie said looking at the others, "I think two of us should go straight to the hallway with the quarters where the children are and the other two of us try to track them down."

"I'm going to see the children!" Sir Axel concluded decisive, then he hurried off - he'd notice in due time who would be joining him. He could've spent time argueing who'd do what, but time was of the essence here. Besides, he was far to paniced to make anything but rash decisions, he figured.

"I'm going to check on Wendy and Daniël!" lady Victoria announced, spurting off before anyone could stop her. Before she'd gotten completely out of ear reach, she shouted back at either Melodie or Ali; "third floor, around the second corner, she shoots for the head so stay low!"

Meanwhile, one of the girls - Amber - was nearing the hallway in which the children were. Fortunatly she'd taken a wrong turn at the start, meaning she'd be taking a bit longer to get there.

Elisabeth had just joined Mercedes, Estella and Nicolas, carrying Chrissy in her arms as she ran there and pressing the door closed behind her with her back.
"The City's being attacked!" she said in a stern voice, not attempting to make it sound any more pleasent than it was. And to think, she wasn't even aware that the attack on the Palace, which was ever so very noticable from where they were - given the explosions, gunshots and screams sounding through the halls, was aimed at the children!

Admittedly this wasn't what Melodie had had in mind when she had said they should split up. She was glad though that Ali hadn't decided to run off as well. She was gratefull though that Lady Victoria told them where one of the teens where and that she aimed for the head.
"Okay Ali let's go to the third floor then," she said before running towards the stairs. Ali followed her up the stairs, when they had almost reached the second corner they slowed down to a walk. There Ali put down the boy she had been carrying and Melodie put him in a bubble as well. Promising him it was for his own safety and that she would let him out as soon as the other teen was no longer a threat. After that Melodie created a black fog that filled the hallway from the second corner and then both of them went in keeping low as Lady Victoria had told them.
In the meantime Mercedes, Estella and Nicolas where in the living room when Elisabeth arrived/stormed in. She had already been afraid that the City had been under attack with the gunshots and screams that where echoing through the halls.
"By what?" she asked worried, "Demons?"
She doubted demons would use guns, but maybe some of the vampires where using them. And she just couldn't think of anyone else who would be strong or stupid enough to willingly attack a city filled with vampires.

Elisabeth didn't really know how to reply without it sounding terribly inimpressive; "no, it's... humans." She put Chrissy down, who quickly hurried over to Nicolas and Estella.
"They've been tricked by that vampire and demon who've been targetting the City. I'm not sure exactly what's happening - I just hurried to here with Chrissy when Axel told me."

Meanwhile, on the other side of the door, a bang sounded, like a small explosion. It was the girl, Amber, who'd come face to face with Sir Axel in the hallway. She'd quickly tossed a gass bomb in to the hall, which had now filled the entire place with a thick, untransparent, toxic fog. She'd quickly put on her gass mask, then grabbed her semi-automatic and shot blindly into the hallway, quite certain she'd hit Sir Axel with that, on puprose or incidentally.

Upon hearing the gunfire from the other side of the door, followed by a scream of her husband, Elisabeth's eyes widened. For a split second, she stood there abolultely shocked and horrified; she'd realised bad things were happening, but she hadn't anticipated anything like this. She quickly snapped out of it though, when she noticed smoke coming out from under the door. "Quick. Another room?" She looked at at Mercedes with a questioning expression, as if to ask whereto they could best go. She realized there wouldn't but much options, but she really didn't know her way around these quarters well, so conisdered Mercedes might better lead the way.

Meanwhile, Melodie and Ali were greeted by a blind array of gunfire. Like Victoria said, the bullets where aimed rather high, at about 1.65 metres above the ground, so staying low would be a good strategy. After a moment the gunfire had stopped, and you could almost feel the hessitation of the gun-slinging girl. A couple of second later though, a small click sounded, followed by the sound of a small object being tossed across the floor. It was hard to tell what it was, or where, due to the black fog Melodie had created, but a keen ear (and by that I mean: a vampire ear) might just overhear a ticking sound.

For a moment Mercedes, Estella and Nicolas all just stared at Elisabeth when she had said that they where being attacked by humans. That staring stopped though when she explained that they where tricked by the vampire and demon that had been bothering them. Mercedes looked extra uncomfortable after that news, a little scared that Wade my be amongst the attackers. Nicolas in the mean time had put his arms around Chrissy in both a comforting as well as protective kind of way. At the sound of gunshots, a scream from Sir Axel and smoke coming out from under the door Mercedes really started to worry/panick.
"This way," she pushed the children out in front of her towards the main bedroom and into the bathroom that was connected with it. There she gave them a kiss on the head and told them to keep quiet before closing the door. After that she looked at Elisabeth for a moment before walking over to her nightstand and pulling out a small gun and knife. She held out the knife to Elisabeth in case she wanted it and then kneeled down besides the bed to have some cover.

In a different hallway Melody and Ali where getting closer and closer to the gunslinging teen. The bullets flew over their heads not a single one even threatened to touch them. When the gunfire stopped so did Melodie and Ali, first wanting to know what was going to happen next before proceeding forward again. When the soft click came and the sound of something small being tossed onto the floor Melodie looked confused at Ali. Ali in turn strained her ears for a few moments, her eyes went huge when she assumed what the ticking sound must be.
"Bubble now!" Ali yelled, panic stopping her from thinking clear enough to keep her voice down and there by giving away their location and that they where still alive. Melodie on the other hand quickly snapped a bubble into place, though still uncertain of why she had done so.

It was a good thing Ali had called out for the bubble, because it wasn't even half a second after Melodie had set it up that a loud bang sounded. It was followed by a great explosion of fire and pieces of smashed rocks flying everywhere. A moment later, the tunner that was the hallway collapsed for a part, leaving Ali and Melodie, and the human girl known as Tara cut off from eachother.

Elisabeth watched Mercedes push the children out of the room, on the one hand glad they were outside of the immidiate attack-zone, but also more tensed because she now felt the pressure of having to protect them... no matter what the cost. She shook her head when Mercedes reached out a knife to her, and instead phased out of the bedroom again to barricade the door to the door to the hallway, then she quickly hurried back to the bedroom.

Only a second after Elisabeth had returned to the bedroom, a banging on the front door sounded. This was quickly followed by the sound of gunfire ripping through wood and cloth, after which the doors were kicked open. Elisabeth cast a serious, meaningful look at Mercedes, as she braced herself for the worst. Then the doors were blasted out of their sockets by a granade. It started with a loud bang, accompanied by fire and pieces of rock and wood flying everywhere. Then the remaining plates of the door came bursting inside the room, one smashing against the wall, and the other crashing into the bed. After that, the smoke of the explosion filled the room, leaving Elisabeth coughing and having trouble seeing.

"Come out, come out whereever you are!" the girl on the other side of the smattered doors shouted, holding up a machine gun in every hand, aiming it at the two sculpures she could make out in the mist.