back? Or should I call for reinforcements?”
Margot gave her a curt nod that disguised her pride, and then returned to her attempts to patch together her tattered clothing.
“I’m good. However, I will need to sleep eventually. How many more jumps are you anticipating?”
“The precognitive pool said three,” Mitsuru said, frowning. “But this is four already. We must be close. Alistair will be joining us shortly, and he can take of any fatigue issues. It’s a bit odd, but after the implant, you’ll feel as if you slept last night.”
“He’s coming here? Then this must be the place…”
“Yes, he should be coming with Xia and Chinwe, the backup transporter. Do you know him?”
“Not really,” Margot said, frowning at her attempts to hide the gashes in the back of her shirt and jacket. “I met him at the orientation, when I got provisional status. We’ve never worked together.”
“He’s nice enough. They promoted him to the support team about a month before you joined us. I think he said he was Nigerian. He is restricted to point-to-point transfer, but his range is incredible.” Mitsuru checked the time on the readout on her cell phone. “The Anathema are spending a great deal more time in this building than the last one.”
“Seems that way,” Margot agreed. “Say, is there any way that Alistair could maybe bring some clothes with him? I’m afraid these are going to fall off of me, and I have this complex about fighting naked.”
“You have a complex?” Mitsuru asked, staring. “Does that happen to you so often that you’ve developed a complex over it?”
Margot sighed and sat down on one of the aluminum vent shafts that lined the roof of the building. Her hands went to check on her hair automatically, before she remember that she’d had Eerie cut it off, so it stopped at the nape of her neck and stayed well out of her eyes. It had been a sacrifice, because her hair hadn’t grown at all since she’d become a vampire, but Margot wasn’t taking any chances. She meant to be an Auditor.
“I’m not much with protocols. None of us are. I’ve never met a vampire who operated a protocol of any kind. Eerie says it’s because our nanites are different, but I don’t know if that’s true. What I do know is that I heal rapidly from any injury, and that I am pretty strong, so I tend to fight up close,” Margot shook her head and looked unhappy. Mitsuru wondered privately about her definition of ‘pretty strong’ – earlier, she’d seen Margot lift a Weir and throw him, something she would have thought impossible. “But even if I can take a beating, my clothes, even body armor, can’t take the same abuse. I’ve had two unfortunate experiences with that. I’d rather not make tonight the third.”
“How did it happen?”
Margot didn’t appreciate this line of questioning, but as Mitsuru was her senior and the evaluator on this assignment, she responded as if it didn’t matter to her.
“Did you know that Witches can manipulate fire?”
“If they know the right working, sure. Why?”
“No one told me,” Margot said humorlessly. “That was the first time.”
“And the second?”
“I got ambushed and overrun by Ghouls in Serbian cemetery – it was a dog pile, basically. I was actually buried underneath them at one point. They were tearing each other apart in desperation, trying to get out. God, those things are stupid.” Margot’s eyes looked distant. “You have no idea how bad it stank. I fought my way out, but they bite and scratch. I was fairly intact when I extracted myself, but my clothes, not so much.”
“That is truly disgusting,” Mitsuru said, shaking her head.
“I don’t know,” Alistair said, his hair standing on end, and the air around him crackling from the apport. “A naked woman is a naked woman, even if she is covered in goo from the insides of corpse-eating monsters. I, for one, refuse to remember it badly.”
Alistair was wearing armor that
Margot gave her a curt nod that disguised her pride, and then returned to her attempts to patch together her tattered clothing.
“I’m good. However, I will need to sleep eventually. How many more jumps are you anticipating?”
“The precognitive pool said three,” Mitsuru said, frowning. “But this is four already. We must be close. Alistair will be joining us shortly, and he can take of any fatigue issues. It’s a bit odd, but after the implant, you’ll feel as if you slept last night.”
“He’s coming here? Then this must be the place…”
“Yes, he should be coming with Xia and Chinwe, the backup transporter. Do you know him?”
“Not really,” Margot said, frowning at her attempts to hide the gashes in the back of her shirt and jacket. “I met him at the orientation, when I got provisional status. We’ve never worked together.”
“He’s nice enough. They promoted him to the support team about a month before you joined us. I think he said he was Nigerian. He is restricted to point-to-point transfer, but his range is incredible.” Mitsuru checked the time on the readout on her cell phone. “The Anathema are spending a great deal more time in this building than the last one.”
“Seems that way,” Margot agreed. “Say, is there any way that Alistair could maybe bring some clothes with him? I’m afraid these are going to fall off of me, and I have this complex about fighting naked.”
“You have a complex?” Mitsuru asked, staring. “Does that happen to you so often that you’ve developed a complex over it?”
Margot sighed and sat down on one of the aluminum vent shafts that lined the roof of the building. Her hands went to check on her hair automatically, before she remember that she’d had Eerie cut it off, so it stopped at the nape of her neck and stayed well out of her eyes. It had been a sacrifice, because her hair hadn’t grown at all since she’d become a vampire, but Margot wasn’t taking any chances. She meant to be an Auditor.
“I’m not much with protocols. None of us are. I’ve never met a vampire who operated a protocol of any kind. Eerie says it’s because our nanites are different, but I don’t know if that’s true. What I do know is that I heal rapidly from any injury, and that I am pretty strong, so I tend to fight up close,” Margot shook her head and looked unhappy. Mitsuru wondered privately about her definition of ‘pretty strong’ – earlier, she’d seen Margot lift a Weir and throw him, something she would have thought impossible. “But even if I can take a beating, my clothes, even body armor, can’t take the same abuse. I’ve had two unfortunate experiences with that. I’d rather not make tonight the third.”
“How did it happen?”
Margot didn’t appreciate this line of questioning, but as Mitsuru was her senior and the evaluator on this assignment, she responded as if it didn’t matter to her.
“Did you know that Witches can manipulate fire?”
“If they know the right working, sure. Why?”
“No one told me,” Margot said humorlessly. “That was the first time.”
“And the second?”
“I got ambushed and overrun by Ghouls in Serbian cemetery – it was a dog pile, basically. I was actually buried underneath them at one point. They were tearing each other apart in desperation, trying to get out. God, those things are stupid.” Margot’s eyes looked distant. “You have no idea how bad it stank. I fought my way out, but they bite and scratch. I was fairly intact when I extracted myself, but my clothes, not so much.”
“That is truly disgusting,” Mitsuru said, shaking her head.
“I don’t know,” Alistair said, his hair standing on end, and the air around him crackling from the apport. “A naked woman is a naked woman, even if she is covered in goo from the insides of corpse-eating monsters. I, for one, refuse to remember it badly.”
Alistair was wearing armor that
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