The team rode in stiff silence, all three of them focusing for the upcoming chaos in their own way. Rhia leaned her head back and closed her eyes, letting the sway of the truck lull her into a shallow trance. She tried to shut off her racing mind. She couldn't let Constantine affect her work. She would have to deal with him later.

The ambulance slowed, and then stopped. Rhia followed Andrew out of the back, slinging her bag over her shoulder, and helping Ian with the stretcher. The massive parking lot was alight with police, fire, and medical services. A line of uniformed officers held back the crowd of onlookers and the media from trying to catch a glimpse of a weeping parent or someone of rank to harass with questions.

Inside was even louder. The mall's patrons were crowded into several lines in the main foyer to have their information gathered and briefly interviewed before getting sent off. Inside a café were a mix of crying adults with several uniformed officers and people in suits. One stuck out like a sore thumb as he wore tactical gear and even in passing Rhia could see how distinctly yellow his eyes were. "Damn," Ian whistled, staring at the same guy. "The Counsel sent shifters to help?"

"It's all politics." Andrew shrugged. They pulled up to a line of other E.M.S. waiting to be dispatched through the mall. "It looks good for them, especially if they find the kids."

"Hey, isn't that...?"

Rhia turned to see none other than Maddox coming in their direction. "Hey, look at you back on the job!" she reached out and hugged him gently, wary of his arm in the sling. "I thought you were going to be stuck on desk duty for a while."

"Yeah, well, desperate times." he shrugged his good shoulder. "Can I talk to you for a minute?"

She followed him a few meters away where it was only slightly quieter. "What's up?" She narrowed her eyes in worry. "Are you sure you should be here?"

"I'm fine," he waved her off. "Davis wants me to liaise between the parents and the teams. I might as well be on desk duty and it gets one more abled-bodied man walking the halls."

"Yeah, but-"

"It was either me or Landon."

"Jesus."

"Yeah. That's what I wanted to talk to you about. I think he drank himself into a mental breakdown after seeing you with Nolan last week. He's been erratic and angrier than normal. He showed up at the house looking for you a couple times. I don't want you to go anywhere alone."

"He wouldn't do anything in public."

"I don't know." The worry in his voice was evident. "He's not right in the head. I hear the higher ups are already working on forcing his retirement."

"Then what the hell is he doing here?"

"Optics. He's the nuttiest of the right-wing anti-ancient nut jobs, and he would lose all support outside the department if he weren't in front of the cameras. If he can spin himself in a heroic way, it will be harder for the brass to oust him."

"I am so sick of political bullshit." She sighed heavily. "I'm just going to do my job. Landon isn't my boss. What's he going to do, get me fired? I've already handed in my resignation. I'm gone after Christmas."

A single laugh escaped his lips, and he relaxed somewhat. "So, you're really going?"

"Yep." She couldn't help the smile spreading across her own face. "In a few weeks it'll be nothing but fine wine and moonlit dinners on top of the Eifel tower."

"I don't think you can..."

"Let me dream, it's the one thing I want."

"Hey, you'll be in France. You can finally get day drunk without being judged. Just like you always wanted!"

"Asshole." She smacked his arm.

"Hey, Rhia," Ian appeared at her elbow and handed her a radio. "You're heading to the west wing. Channel four, meet up with Delta-Two."

"Right. Where are you?"

"I'm with him." Ian nodded to Maddox. "They want me to help keep the families calm."

"Great. I can't get anything out of the mothers. Keep in touch, sis."

And with that, they parted ways. Rhia jogged off down the hall, dodging the occasional team. Away from the police, the crowds, and the hysterical families, the mall was empty. It was kind of spooky.

She reached an intersection and raised the radio. "Come in, Delta-two; over."

"This is Delta-Two; over." Came a static-filled voice a second later.

"This is E.M.S. instructed to join your team. What is your location; over?"

"Next to the cash registers in the Macys. We'll wait for you; out."

Rhia headed into the large department store and straight for the registers. Her heart sank. Church. Fucking Church. How was she this unlucky? A dark glower washed over his face when he saw her. Next to him was an older officer, holding the leash to none other than Nova. At least she had some protection. The second man smiled and held out his hand. "Detective Johnson," he said. "This is Sergeant Churchill."

"Sergeant?" she quirked an eyebrow at Church. "You got promoted? When?"

"Last week." He puffed out his chest proudly and waggled his eyebrows. "Impressed?"

"I honestly could not care even a little bit." She sighed, already emotionally drained from his presence. "I'm glad Landon's blatant favoritism is working out for someone."

Johnson looked between them. "I'll take it you know each other?"

"We were engaged." Church explained quickly before she could answer. "Bitch broke my heart."

Not before you broke my ribs, she wanted to scream. She didn't. It wouldn't have made a difference. Johnson nodded slowly. "Sure." He said with heavily implied doubt. "Anyway, this is Nova."

"Yeah, I know. My brother is Maddox, her usual handler."

"That makes introductions easy. Let's go, then. Nova, seek."

Nova rose from her sitting position and lowered her head to the ground. With a gentle tug, she started to lead them down the aisles. Church fell back to walk next to Rhia. "Hey," his voice was soft, and almost reminiscent of how he used to speak with her. "Look, things got a little... crazy... the other night. We need to talk. Just us, okay?"

"No." she bit out and sped up to catch up with Johnson and Nova.

Church reached out and grabbed her arm in a vice-like grip and pulling her to a stop. "Goddamn it, Rhi," he hissed. "Why do you have to be so fucking stubborn? I just want to talk without a fucking dragonkin attacking me. You owe me that much."

"I don't owe you a goddamn thing." She snarled quietly and tried to pull away again. "Get your hands off me."

His grip on her arm only tightened. A low growl ahead of them made them look up. Johnson looked bored. Nova's hackles were raised and staring straight at Church. "There are eight kids missing." He said coolly. "How about you two 'talk' later."

Rhia ripped herself free of his grip and almost ran towards the detective and the dog. Nova made a snorting sound, as if pleased with herself, and went back to sniffing out the missing kids.

They continued in silence, making their way through the aisles, looking through racks of clothes, in dressing rooms, and anywhere else they could think of. At the furniture section, Nova's head shot up from the ground and she stopped. Her tail dropped and she looked around in sharp movements, ears twitching. "Seek, Nova." Johnson said again, tugging at the leash attached to her harness.

Nova suddenly jumped at the handler with speed and power Rhia wouldn't have believed of the animal. Johnson went down just in time for a blurred shape to fly over them. The shepherd then launched after the shape, the leash snapping, giving her the freedom to attack. The snarling was horrific and included more than just the canine. Rhia reached out to help the detective up but was hit with the strength of a freight train, knocking her to the ground so hard the wind was knocked out of her. Stars exploded in front of her eyes, and it took a second for her eyes to focus on the snarling... thing above her.

Pitch black eyes with burning yellow irises met hers. Pallid, blue-grey skin with muscles in all the wrong places. A mouth too big with too many teeth. Her throat went dry. Her joints locked up. Someone screamed, and it turned into a strangled gurgle. A loud yelp from Nova followed by a demonic snarling. A gun was fired.

All of this happened in the space of a single second. Before she could react to the creature about to eat her, it was ripped off her and thrown into a rack of decorative china. Church grabbed her around the waist and dragged her up, both of them staring at the newcomer. Rhia recognized him immediately. "Dáithí?" she gasped. "What are you doing here?"

"Later," he growled. "This place is crawling with demons. We need to get out of here now."

As he spoke, three more yellow-eyed demons stepped out of the aisles, blocking their access to the main entrance. "Back room," Church hissed, tugging her back.

Her eyes finally landed on Johnson and a hiss of a gasp escaped her lips. His neck was a mess of red, his throat torn out. A demon lay dead next to him, Nova standing over it with yellow-cultured blood dripping from her jaws. It stunk of sulfur. It was already starting to move again. Nova moved back, keep her body between them and the demons, and encouraging them to run. "Go." Dáithí snapped, backing up quickly. "Go, go, go!"

Nova barked and Rhia's legs finally started to work again. She let Church drag her around and they darted to the back of the store. Behind them there was a stream of demonic hisses and screams. They burst through back door. Dáithí and Nova slipped through just as Church slammed the door behind them. "What the fuck is going on?" He yelped.

There was a heavy thud as one of the demons slammed into the door. Dáithí braced his hands on the floor and magic tingled in the air. A stone slab erupted from the ground, barring the door. "That won't hold them for long." He said warily.

"Where do we go?" Rhia looked to Church.

"Maintenance passage," he pulled swiped at his phone to pull up the schematics. "It connects to everything. The Alpha teams should be there by-"

A demon appeared out of nowhere and slammed Church into the wall. Before she had a chance to react, the creature pounced on her and sunk its fangs into her shoulder. White hot pain exploded through her body and screamed. Dáithí ripped it off her and threw it into a wall. Rhia scrambled back to her feet and stared at it. A sickly green foam bubbled up from its mouth. It clawed at its face, peeling away the necrotic skin.

She turned away and covered her ears. Dáithí wrapped a protective arm around her shoulders and pulled her into the protection of his body. "Never seen that before." He muttered before looking down at her and the gash on her shoulder. "You alright?"

"Yeah," she gasped.

"I'm fine, thanks for asking." Church snapped, holding a hand to a cut on his scalp and getting shakily to his feet.

"Don't care." Dáithí grunted and looked down the only way forward. "Keep going."

Church scowled before drawing his second weapon and handing it to the dragonkin. "Here."

Dáithí looked at it before giving Church a disgusted look. "The fuck am I going to do with that?" he barked. "You can't kill a demon with fucking gunpowder, you moron. Cold iron or hellfire, anything less and you won't even slow it down."

"How is anyone supposed to even know that?"

"We don't have time to chit chat about mortals who've hung iron over their doors like crosses for thousands of years. Keep. Going."

Church glared at Dáithí and ripped the radio off his belt and turning away. He kept walking towards a heavy maintenance door while trying to contact the central outpost. Rhia followed, purposefully avoiding looking at the demon writhing in pain on the floor. "You came back." She said quietly. "Why?"

"You were right." He said after a minute. "Except for one thing. What I did was far worse than what any of the dragons did. He was my brother... And I abandoned him when he needed me most. I can never make it right. But I can try."

"Rhi," Church turned back to them, his face devoid of any colour.

He held out the radio and turned up the volume. Static, muffled screaming, and gunshots came through. She looked at Dáithí. "More demons?" she breathed.

Dáithí's expression was stony. "I'm not waiting around to find out." He snapped. "Go."

They walked quickly down the narrow hall. Nova was in the lead with her nose to the ground. Church had his phone out with a map of the facility shining up at him. Dáithí was close behind her, a hand on the small of her back, encouraging her forward but close enough to pull her back out of harm's way.

"You know, little bird," Dáithí said softly behind her. "Had you told me you had a habit of getting yourself into trouble beyond the vampires, I might not have refused you."

"Had I known I would be in any trouble other than Constantine's goons," she retorted. "I... well, I don't know what I would have said. I clearly don't deal with crisis very well."

"If that's true, you've made a poor career choice."

"Different crises require different sets of crisis management skills." She snapped back. "I am used to seeing people nearly bleed to death. I am not used to being attacked by various species of Ancients."

"Maybe you should think about that the next time you spread your legs for a bloodsucker." Church barked back.

"Charming." Dáithí quipped.

He tugged Rhia to the side to step passed Nova, who had stopped to sniff at a door. Rhia whistled for her. The shepherd whined and sat next to the door. Rhia stopped and resisted Dáithí's hands pulling at her. She looked at the door. Basement Access, said the sign. "Shit." She breathed. "Church, I think the kids are in the basement.

"Fuck!" he hissed. "Fuck, fuck, fuck! Alright!"

He stomped back to the door, drawing his weapon and flashlight. "Nova," He opened the door. "Seek."

Nova burst through the door and flew down the stairs. "L.A.P.D.!" Church shouted, following after the canine.

Rhia adjusted the bag on her shoulder and moved to follow. Dáithí reached out to touch her shoulder. "Something's not right." He muttered. "There's something down there."

"Yeah," she nodded. "Eight missing children. I have a job to do, Dáithí."

Their eyes met. The intense colour and the narrowing slits of his pupils were beyond intimidating. But he had to know she couldn't just turn away from this. "Fine." He nodded once. "Stay close."

She didn't have to worry. Dáithí was right behind her down the stairs to the poorly lit basement. The moment they were on flat ground again, his hand was on her back. "Rhi!" Church called from around a corner. "Over here!"

She chased after the voice. Church and nova stood in front of another door. Just beyond they could hear children crying. He braced himself and slammed his body against the door to no avail. He glared at Dáithí. "A little help?"

Dáithí shrugged, stepped past him, and kicked the door. Hard. It flew off its hinges and disappeared into an oppressive darkness. His eyes widened at the mistake and took the full blast of explosive black magic directly to the face. Something hit Rhia hard and everything went black.

~