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Chapter 4 *** French Quarter, New Orleans Slum Lord tenanet buildings Area known as The Devils Cauldron. Night "Everybody OUT!" Kendra yelled as she yanked the fire escape door open, letting the distraught tenants desperate to escape the flames, out into safety. The crush and momentum of the crowd threw her back against the wall, as they all scrambled over each other into the street. She managed to remain standing, holding herself up, taking temporarily shelter behind the door. Slowly the stream of people eased, that she could snag the last person who stumbled from the billowing smoke. "Is anyone else in dere?" She yelled, trying to be heard above the shrill of the fire-trucks that raced to the inferno. The woman coughed and fought back the tears.. "Ch-children," she said weakly. "Dey got de children!!" Kendras gut tightened, in a second she had bolted around the door and was on her way in. "They" being only one thing - Garaks demon vampires she had been hunting since she had left Tante Mattie almost 3 hours ago. In the space of 8hrs, Kendra had returned Remielle to her grandmother, with the full intention of quickly going after the grandson. But upon returning, Kendra had discovered why they needed the boy, besides apparently keeping Mattie in her place, and that was to use the grandsons blood to remove the impregnable demon barrier around her resisdence and allow them entry into Tantes house and shop; while Matties family were all out searching for Remielle and her brother. The demons shred it apart, nothing was left unbroken or in its place. Windows and doors were torn from their hinges, bookcases overturned and everything in disarray. If there was any doubt to what they wanted or if they'll be back again, the wall painted with Tynes blood left no doubt. "We want the Knights Sword. You have till dusk or he will suffer the consequence." So that was there game. With the sword and the childes chalice filled with the newly sacrificed blood of innocence, any vampire can have 8hours in the light; with the kind of powers vampires had, that could be a lifetime of pain. A sip of this could send out maybe a hundred, possibly more if a virgins blood kept filling it. The devastation would border the catastrophic. But first she had to deal with the struggle at hand. It had taken a great battle of wills to disposess the family of going beneath the tunnels into Garaks extensive underground kingdom and find Tyne themselves. While they were well prepared for it, having more than most knowledge of New Orleans nightlife, their abilitys could only take them so far against immortal strength. Kendra took most of those precious daylight hours to convince Tante to take her family from New Orleans to safety, eventually Tante Mattie had agreed in part. A compromise, new to the Slayers uncompromising manner. Once Tante had settled them in New York, with her adopted childe Remy Le Beau aka Gambit; Prince of the Theives Guilde in New Orleans. Now he was finding retribution through the heroic mutant team called the Xmen who lived in Westchester, New York. Mattie trusted Remy more than anyone along with his best friend, cohort and as Tante insisted his greatest unfound love, Ororo Monroe. Remy could charge objects with kinetic energy and make them as subtle as grenades or as huge as missles. Ororo Monroe aka Stormy could control and manipulate weather; like Menelek, but with devastating force if prompted. She also was familier with and battled with the king of all vampires, Dracula. While that was intoxicating to Kendras inquistive mind, her ultimate plan was to do the rescue alone. She could not be responsible for anyone elses life. That gave her less than three days., she would return with reinforcements and collect her grandson come rain or highwater. Kendra inwardly grimaced, Reinforcements. Not something a Slayer needed, though Buffy did have such a group of mortals and seemed all the better for it. For Kendra it was different. She was brought up as a true Slayer and that meant being on her own 24/7. She had only herself to worry about and not other lives in her hands. Even if these genetically enhanced heroes were as strong as she was; this was her terratory. So she had waved them off and settled down with the blueprints of the underground maze Mattie had given her, and without the aide of sleep and rest, she had found one of the tenanent buildings Garak was using as a cover to feed his burgoning army. That amount of deaths warranted a lot of investigations, all disguised with.. fire and the escape tunnels hidden by debrie. Or so they hoped. This is where she came in. A thick haze of smoke buffeted her almost immediately. The acrid cloud began an assault on her nostrils and eyes, causing her to take a reflexive step backward. But also the sound of a panicked child screaming caught her attention. Kendra redoubled her efforts till she was sprinting into the fog towards the childs cries. Not onto the roof, like she had thought, but down into the sewers and therein the heart of the fire. All this information flashed through her mind at blinding speed, deconstructing their actions into possible scenarios. As her feet touched the landing, kicking past falling beams of fire and walls crumbling in on themselves, Duty called her, and irrespective of her safety, or exhaustion, she never failed to anwser that call. ~*~ Outside; the futility became desperately apparent to all but one. The mother heard the cries too, and ripped the door open again but a booming voice of burly fire-fighter stopped her from going any further, along with several others who came to restrain her. "My enfant are in dere!," she shouted above the noise and panic. "De- de girl went in, she just went in to get dem! You gotta get dem out!! You gotta..." Suddenly the air seemed to go deathly still, the small rush of cool air briefly rushling her hair as it was sucked back into the inferno, along with the smoke and heat. "Back-draft!!" A voice bellowed, and the group was thrown backwards by the sudden voilence of the blast, the door erupting into a fireball. All the firefighters, police and bystanders could do, especially the mother of the children Kendra had tried to save, was watch the once architectural monument detonate and crash on itself - taking her children and their best chance at surviving this tragedy with it. *** end chpt4 << Back |