She nodded, trying to ignore the sickening butterflies in her stomach.

“Caia will prompt you when your Midnight has made the call to Du Bois and you go in, quickly and quietly.” Marion stared at them a few intimidating moments at a time, before turning to the teams of lykans and vampyres. “Unit Two, you’ll be going through the portal with us. You’ll take position near your Midnight and after the spies are out, Caia will send you in to take out the guards.” She smiled dryly and turned to Anders, Mordecai and the others. “Unit Three. You’re with me. We’ll head in once Unit Two confirm the guards are down. Everyone clear?”

The back of the reception area had been sealed off, and shimmering against the wall were six portals. The colors and shapes they made up were merely a warped version of reality - it was the wall, but it swirled and glittered and pulsed invitingly.

Caia looked on, barely listening as Marion directed each team of Unit One to the correct portal, and then began following the witch to the portal reserved for Units Two and Three. The others strode ahead and through them, the vampyres holding their weapons high just in case they encountered any Midnights on the other side. She could have told them they wouldn’t. She knew where every single one of them was and they had no idea an arsenal of Daylights were on their way to ruin their night.

“Caia?”

She started at the warm hand on her shoulder and gazed up into Lucien’s concerned face. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Rose glide past them with the others, her gaze washing over them as she did so. Lucien had obviously asked for a moment alone to talk to her.

“What?” She didn’t mean to snap. There was just too much to concentrate on, her self-control over this issue just didn’t seem that important at the moment.

He blinked, seeming surprised by her tone. “I just wanted to say good luck, and please don’t do anything stupid.”

This concern, this tenderness, created an urge to scratch her claws across his face and spit and growl and snarl until she was hoarse with it. She didn’t want to see that he worried for her. She didn’t need the confusion it brought with it. She twisted her mouth in derision and jerked away from his grasp. “Why don’t you save the concern for Rose? I can handle myself.”

Dark uncertainty fell over his features. “Caia, wh-”

She didn’t stay to hear the end of that question. Instead she almost ran for the portal, knowing he wouldn’t be able to plague her with his questions once they were through. A rush of pressurized air blasted her hair back, almost as if she was on a rollercoaster... on a rollercoaster in a very, very dark place. A feeling likened to sea sickness engulfed her and she knew she was through the portal. Hesitantly, she opened her eyes, taking in the sight of Remnant forest, which even with her lykan vision seemed to swallow them in its alien blackness. Because of her awareness of them, she could feel the energy of the amassed Midnights beckoning from the north like tendrils of hair blowing in the wind. It was strange to now equate the usually familiar and welcoming smell of a damp wood with this adrenaline charged anxiety.

Ducking down to the ground, Caia took in their position. Unit Two were already making their way through the woods towards the perimeter guards. She turned to Marion who was huddled behind a fallen tree in which the growth covering it created a wall of defense.

Lucien was the last to come through the portal and he snapped down to the ground behind the tree so quickly she heard Anders laughing whispers, urging him once more to join his unit at the Center. Marion shushed them and turned to Caia. Caia closed her eyes and called on the trace to do its job. She was able to hold on to the five spies’ energy in synch, each like a different window on one screen of a computer. The first members of the MacLachlans left their house, followed closely by the three other families on that street. As their cars pulled away, the Midnight watching sent a text message to Du Bois. She almost smiled smugly at that. Their outfit wasn’t quite as swanky as their own.

Remembering what all this meant, her amusement quickly faded and she pressed the ear piece. “Team Three, you’re safe to proceed.”

“Roger.”

Wow, that was loud in her ear.

Anders and Phoebe were grinning in anticipation of the fight.

Within a few minutes each Midnight spy had completed their task and Caia had sent in all of Unit One, each asserting within minutes of her order that the Midnight was dead. After watching the first magik being chewed from the inside out, after the reminder of her own fight with a daemon not too long ago, Caia had been blasted with an empathy a soldier couldn’t really afford. The surprise and shock, the undiluted fear, the panic, the horrendous pain, and the awful realization of approaching death clawed at her throat. She knew they were magiks bent on doing a despicable thing, but it didn’t make it any easier to watch them die. She’d pulled out of the trace and hadn’t watched while the other Midnights were killed. At the confirmation of their deaths, Unit Three exhaled a unanimous breath of relief and triumph.

“Unit Two,” Caia whispered over the comms, “Proceed to the guards.”

“Roger.”

The sounds of all those voices whispering down their comms made them flinch and she hoped to Artemis that it hadn’t distracted Unit Two. She felt her unit gazing at her as she observed through the trace. It was done so smoothly, so perfectly executed. The magik distracted the Midnight momentarily, while the vampyre, without a whisper of clothing or intake of breath, surreptitiously slipped up behind the Midnight, clamped a hand over their mouth to occlude any warning shouts, and slit the guard’s throat. It was gruesome and underhanded, and Caia couldn’t help feeling more pangs of disgust that this was even necessary. Feeling their stares on her burning cheeks, Caia ignored her own regrets, and gave them a brittle nod at the exact moment the teams began confirming the guards dead over the comms.

Now it was their turn.

Mordecai, Michael and Marion were to wait as the lykans changed into wolf form. While they stripped to nothing and began the change, Caia was already there. With her magik she could transform within seconds to wolf without having to strip, and using glamour she could transform back fully clothed. She waited, however, as the others did, until Lucien, Anders and the women were done.

They took off simultaneously.

Caia was heading for her magik, an older female fire magik. At her speed she came upon the woman who was hiding with her back to her behind a large tree. She turned a few degrees at the last second as she heard the cracking of bracken, but it was too late. Caia was already clambering up her back and taking her slender neck in her jaws.

As the warm blood pulsed into her mouth, Caia pushed away the fresh memory of this woman’s vertebrae snapping under the clamp of her strong jaws, the feel of her warm flesh piercing under her claws like the skin of a peach bursting. In fact, it was easier to forget reality altogether as she waited for the magik’s heart to stop.

It did. And what seemed like hours had merely been seconds.

Caia backed up off the falling body and searched the other Midnights. Lucien must have gotten to his magik almost at the same time and had killed him, but not before the magik had let out a roar. The others were now aware they weren’t alone.

Luckily, Anders had taken his magik unawares and was just now finishing him off in the exact manner Caia and Lucien had theirs.

Phoebe was in the middle of a physical fight with her warlock, an air magik who was just now attempting to suffocate her. She struggled violently against his power and proved herself determined to win the fight as she viciously bit down on his privates in order to loosen his grip. Caia winced at the excruciating pain that ripped through his entire being, and reminded herself never to get into a fight with Phoebe. The Hunter fought dirty. At his weeping the magik finally let go long enough for Phoebe to go in for the kill. Caia turned away as his heart stopped.

Rose didn’t appear to be getting anywhere near her magik. He had put up a shield around himself almost immediately at the sound of his comrade’s roar, and now Rose kept bouncing off of it uselessly. Caia wished she had her comms so she could tell her to conserve her energy, to wait for him to let go of the spell holding her off.

Michael was in an intense fight with his fire magik, but he was managing to dodge the hits from the Midnight and had even shot the bastard in the arm.

At the same time, Marion was struggling with a female earth magik. She couldn’t get a hit in - the woman just kept dousing it with earth and creating weapons out of rock. Poor Marion was covered in lacerations and bruises.

Caia continued sifting.

Du Bois.

Through his eyes she saw him empty water from Mordecai’s dead body. He had suffocated the magik; had enjoyed every moment of taking down ‘the inept boy’ as if he were any older or wiser than his adversary. Hatred for him and regret and fury over Mordecai’s demise flooded her, urging her body into motion and propelling her through the forest towards the Midnight responsible. Still tracing him, she saw Anders tear around the corner and confront Du Bois, his jaw dripping with gore, his huge wolf body an impressive sight. She thought she would feel fear in Du Bois. Instead, as previously shielded thoughts poured out of him in his excitement, the fear belonged to her.

No!

It wasn’t possible. How could he have hidden this so successfully from her?

She burst into view behind him, in time to see for herself the contents of a vial he had produced bursting open into liquid gold, streaming through the air, actuated by Pierre’s water magik. The horror of what that liquid meant unfolded before her as each drop brought about Anders transformation back into human form. He lay there, naked and confused, as he gazed at his human hands curled into the dirt ground of the forest floor. His eyes flashed up in panic, just in time to see the water rush at him and force its way into his mouth, flooding his lungs and drowning the life from his body.

And Caia hadn’t been able to stop it. Instead her trace had automatically taken her to the magik Rose was fighting off, and he was in the process of doing the same thing. Lucien pounded into view and battered at the shield as the magik transformed Rose back.