* * * PARTHIA – MARY * * *

Mary wandered into her observation lounge; she went to look out of one of the big windows at the busy harbour. She looked at the small collection of newspapers on the small table by one of the armchairs.

She sat and picked up the first. Mary flicked through the first edition of the English language ExPat Chronicle. Dropping it, Mary did the same with the second and third editions of that weekly publication.

Mary released her avatar and returned to her core. Once there she stretched her senses. Then she focused on the offices of the ExPat Chronicle. She checked Kyle and Cherry Swales. The two editors of the new weekly paper were evidently stubborn as rocks. To be living in a dungeon and still not integrated into the System took wilful blindness.

The two Brits wouldn’t last. So far they hadn’t published anything that annoyed her. Just gossip and personal ads. But their plans for their son and daughter in law were truly stupid. Oh well, it was a self-solving problem. Darwinian so to speak.

But just to be sure Mary decided to warn all her people...

« Be aware, the Swales, who publish the gossip rag ExPat Chronicle, intend to send their son as a travel reporter to explore the world. I do not see them as mine and will not rescue, aid or hinder. »

Having made her decision, she turned her attention to the other little problem. The one Mycroft had bought to her attention.

She swept her awareness over the overstaffed embassy of a struggling Central American state. She listened to the embassy’s chargé d’affaires finish his briefing. Sitting at the back of the room was the recently arrived Adelio Rosas.

Something about that name tickled her memories. Mary looked into her core’s records and found the name. Linny had mentioned a man by that name; it had been a passing reference regarding her transformation.

Mary felt like grinning, looked like an easy favour. And Linny was unstable enough to be unpredictable. So be it, but first to see if Linny wanted the man. Well, there was time; the idiots were planning to move after dark, as if that would affect her.

She prepared messengers to the other embassies, no point scaring her guests unnecessarily. Then she waited.

Two hours after dark, two groups of armed men left the embassy. Mary alerted her people and sent the messengers on their way.

She focused her attention on the streets near her father’s home. She watched as her Special Forces squads waited patiently for the two groups of would be kidnappers. It irked her that the handful of scouts she had scattered around would not be needed. The two groups of thugs, habituated to disappearing defenceless civilians, didn’t even throw out scouts.

She watched, as her people cut down the cocksure would be kidnappers. There were no survivors, and none of hers was killed. Her lasers proved their worth. Silent and deadly.

« Mycroft, just how stupid are those idiots. »

« They just haven’t woken up to what you are. Let’s be honest, with the advantages you seem to have given them. Well, they would have succeeded against most dungeons. »

« What advantages? They asked for an embassy. I gave them one. Then that idiot posted his star snatch squad as the embassy guard. Not satisfied with that, he had the snatch coordinator posted as the chargé d’affaires. They planned the snatch while they were living in my domain! They had no chance. Now it only remains to mop up the rest. You sure the Generalissimo an’ El President are ignorant? »

« Yes... But cowed. They wouldn’t dare object to anything their chief of Internal Security planned. »

« Humph! Better set up some contingency plans, Mycroft. I might have to arm their rebels. Oh well, time to finish this farce. Most of their guards are dead, time to empty the embassy. »

« Are you still planning to send the ambassador’s children to Ambuila Mother? »

« Yes. An’ the adolescents too, those junior thugs will be dumped on that empty sub-continent. You know – Suruk. As for the children, they will be treasured; children are precious there. And Ambuila needs new blood. »

Mary watched as her people moved quietly into the embassy. She basked in the life energy that was being fed her, as the operation proceeded.

* * * PARTHIA – US EMBASSY * * *

Meadows looked at the young runner. He accepted the bulky message and offered the youth a Bit. The boy grinned as he made the copper coin vanish.

Once the boy was gone, Meadows opened the envelope and found a brief letter and a USB stick. After reading the letter, Meadows went to find the Ambassador.

Admiral Forrester was watching television with his wife. After scanning the message, Forrester, somewhat reluctantly, made his way to his office with Meadows.

After watching the film they found on the USB stick, they called in their Spanish translator. They watched it again, this time with a competent translation.

“Nothing we can do about this,” observed Forrester. “We will understand when their ambassador and chargé d’affaires are expelled.”

Meadows looked grim. “I suspect they will be lucky if they are only expelled.”

“We’ll take things as they come. She really can see everything in her dungeon, can’t she?” asked Forrester.

“Yes, she can, I’ve confirmed that with Tod,” confirmed Meadows.

“We will need an embassy outside of any dungeon, how is Tod?”

“Bored, but well,” said Meadows.

* * * EARTH – TESSA AND LISSA * * *

Tessa grinned, she looked at her twin, “It’s a go, time to hunt.”

Lissa checked her weapons, “Good luck twin.”

Lissa ghosted out of the rented holiday chalet and made her way to the capital’s heavily patrolled luxury neighbourhood.

She smiled to herself as she examined the high wall surrounding the garden of the luxury villa. She snorted in amusement. The dogs were not expecting leopard girls, never mind mages. She gathered herself and jumped. She cleared the wall, not by much, but she cleared it.

She didn’t see any of the dogs as she crossed the garden, keeping to the shadows.

With her abilities, it proved ridiculously easy to enter the villa. Knowing where the guards would be, thanks to their scrying, she was easily able to reach the master bedroom.

She found Henriquez, the head of Internal Security asleep in his king sized bed with a pretty young woman. One quick sleep spell later, Lissa drew her sword and took Henriquez’s head. Placing this in her storage device Lissa withdrew.

Once she got to the square in front of the cathedral, Lissa stuck the head on a long spear she produced from her storage device, then she stuck the spear in the central flower bed.

With one last look, Lissa headed back to their hired chalet.

* * *

Tessa gave her twin half an hour before alerting the small squad that was her responsibility. They too left the chalet quietly.

Tessa and her party got into their rented car, and drove towards the centre of town. They parked near one of the nightclubs popular with tourists, tossing a handful of change to the skulking street kids.

After a bit of time strolling around, they moved quietly towards a quieter neighbourhood. This area was almost deserted, probably because of the presence of the building they were interested in. The old colonial style mansion was mostly dark. The feared Internal Security department owned it. They knew, from divinations and scrying, that it was mostly deserted at this time in the night. There would be a couple of bored guards watching the front entrance, and someone manning the room controlling the electronic surveillance for the building. Apart from them there were a trio of thugs guarding a couple of political prisoners in the cellar.

Tessa and her friends activated their personal illusion talismans, they checked each other out and were satisfied that they now looked like five, none too prosperous locals.

Tessa grinned as she looked at Leon, the party’s battle mage. “I’ll use shadow casting to get in. That way we will avoid setting off any alarms. I’ll try to neutralise the comms centre. Then the door guards, once I get the door open you head for the prisoners, free and heal them. If they want weapons, give the them the AKs.”

Tessa used her ability to step through shadows to enter the building. She used a convenient window. It was closed and barred but with her specialised magics, it proved no barrier.

She reached the locked door to the building’s security nerve centre without problem. She was feeling jumpy, as twice so far she had felt an unnatural chill. ‘If this was Parthia, I would swear they had ghosts or worse,” she thought.

Despite everything the door was not guarded against magic and one of her more basic lockpicking spells opened the locks. Tessa shoved the door open and entered the room. The technician’s head turned to look at the opening door even as his hand reached for the alarm.

A three round burst from the AK 47 she was holding dropped the man in his tracks. Tessa sighed in relief as the powerful silence spell on the gun held. Once again she felt that unnatural chill, even as a dim shadow seemed to gather around the fallen man.

She shook herself, turned and made her way towards the front door. She found the two guards playing checkers. She quickly cut them down. The spell on her gun held, but she noted it was getting strained.

Once she had the door open, Leon and the others entered quietly. They closed the door behind them and made their way towards the entrance to the cellars.

“Don’t linger, there is something malevolent trying to manifest,” explained Tessa.

“Right,” agreed Leon.

The door at the top of the stairs proved no more difficult to open than the last. But they were unable to miss the pressure alarms on the stairs. So they raced down and burst into the guard cum torture room with guns blazing. The guards managed to get off a few shots, but Leon’s barrier prevented them from doing damage.

There were two shadows this time, and they seemed more – present – somehow. Anita bypassed them, potions in hand. The party hurried and they dragged the three prisoners out of the room and up the stairs. They all felt the chill in the air and they almost ran out of the house.

Once outside, Tessa gathered the shadows and they healed the former prisoners. They left the former prisoners the AKs they had used in the assault and rescue and left fading into the shadows.

Not much later, they were once again in their car with their illusionary disguises discarded. They returned to their rented Chalet. Tessa watched as Leon and the others stepped through the portal to Parthia. She poured herself a drink and waited for her twin.

When Lissa arrived back, the leopard twins stepped through the portal and went to report to Mary. Lewis recovered his domain from the chalet, and dispelled the portal.