Stronger Together chapter 114 (Patreon)

Waking up is hard to do. Or at least, it used to be. As I came awake  this time though the fuzzy veil of sleep slid off my newly refined brain  like a magician yanking off a handkerchief. I went from asleep to  awake, like a switch had been flipped. It was an oddly disturbing  experience all things considered. It almost made me sad, losing that  common ground of muddy half sleep everyone seemed to share. I moved past  it though, slipping out of bed, careful not to wake the girls. They had  decided to nap with me clearly and looking back I realized they must  have been staying up to wait for me to come out of my coma.

I  checked the time, it was about five thirty, which meant I had time to  shower and get dressed. I decided to give them until six. I wanted to  wake them last minute but meeting with anyone while Barb was still half  asleep was a hazard to the health of everyone involved. Still I could  spare them a half hour while I showered, Mac's wasn't too far and we  could leave at six thirty. The shower felt amazing, the feel of the heat  spreading through me was fantastic. Not a new sense really, just a new  way of using the old ones. I spent the full half hour in there, enjoying  the hot water and scrubbing myself just short of raw.

The  feeling of being completely clean had always been one I enjoyed  immensely and I took a moment to luxuriate in the sensation of  purification a nice scalding hot shower gives you before I realized I  was getting weirdly distracted with normal everyday tasks and that I  should probably be careful of that at the meeting. With my brain working  so fast it was all too easy to dump unusual amounts of my attention  into random things, which would of course be bad when negotiating with a  potentially dangerous kitsune.

I  slipped back into the room and woke up the girls because I promised  they could come and as much as I wanted to let them sleep I wouldn't  break my word to them then I sat down and crossed my legs, trying to get  my mind in order. The mental exercise of collecting and organizing my  thoughts seemed pretty much instant but once again I dedicated too much  concentration to one thing, before I even knew what was happening Raven  and Barb were shaking me back into awareness. Barb's relieved smile when  I opened my eyes made my heart ache for worrying her. "Hey there, I was  scared you went back into that coma."

I  rose fluidly to my feet, glorying in my new coordination and smiled at  her disarmingly "I'm fine babe, just needed to get my head on straight,  this new tune up for my brain has me a little off balance. Now I know  how you feel all the time with your super genius mind and you amazing  coordination. It's pretty cool I have to admit." I swept in to peck her  on the lips, feeling her relieved smile against my mouth as she decided I  was fine. When I pulled back I saw happy fondness in those gorgeous  blue eyes. "Anyway you guys call the car yet?"

She  rolled her eyes at my apparent obliviousness "Yes Cam, about fifteen  minutes ago. It's here now that's why we woke you." I didn't correct her  by stressing that I hadn't been asleep, they would probably feel better  if they thought that anyway. We turned and headed out. Raven was  dressed in a short black skirt and ripped tights with a black band T  that had the sleeves ripped off. Barb was sporting a pair of yoga pants  and a pink tank top. They looked good together, and Barb's athletic body  looked great in yoga pants.

We  arrived at Mac's at about six forty five, so Barb went ahead to the bar  to order for us while Raven and I found a table. Hana wasn't here yet,  but she struck me as the type to mysteriously appear at exactly seven  P.M. Barb came back over with a few bottles of root beer and three  plates of steak sandwiches and fries and we all dug in. The food was  every bit as good as I remembered, maybe better with my new perception.  Mac really was amazing. The root beer was as amazing as Mac's drinks  always were and I just generally enjoyed the act of eating.

I'm  not sure if Hana did the mysterious appearing thing or if I just got  really into my sandwich, but suddenly she was sitting at the table with  us. Barb and Raven were both almost impossible to sneak up on so they  hardly twitched, my new control over my body meant I was able to squash  the impulse to jump. I casually looked up at the pretty japanese woman,  deliberately taking another bite. I didn't know the time because we had  to power out phones down before we came into Mac's just in case but I  imagined it was probably seven P.M on the dot.

Hana  smiled, baring her teeth in a very foxy grin. "So, you mentioned a job,  what kind of work were you thinking?" She flicked her eyes over the  girls, taking some extra time on Raven's generous curves. "If you want  to fuck me I normally charge double my day rate, but your purple haired  goth there is so pretty I'll do it for normal price if shes involved."  She flicked her eyes to Barb "No offense red, I just like a little  jiggle in my girls."

It was a  pretty transparent attempt to put us off balance, and probably would  have worked before my tune up, but now I just ignored it. "We're going  to be cleaning out a nest of undead. We have a decent sized crew with  some pretty serious firepower but we could use someone with a knack for  illusions. It goes down in a few days, you want us to pay for the  intervening time or only the day of the raid?" I got right into the meat  of things, not bothering to beat around the bush. Hana's eyebrow went  up but she didn't seem overly worried.

When  I asked the last question though she did seem a bit offended. "I don't  charge for work I don't do. Pay me day of, and if we have a strategy  meeting or something at any point before then I'll charge for that day  too. This meeting is on the house since we haven't finalized the deal  yet. That work for you?" Her teasing air was gone, once again switching  from playful to businesslike in an instant, a quality I rather enjoyed  in an associate.

I  gave a serious nod, picking up her desire to get down to brass tacks  and moving ahead in that same vein "Sounds acceptable. A hundred  thousand a day is doable for us. If I'm paying such a high rate though a  basic description of your skills wouldn't be a bad thing. What can you  bring to this fight? I have my own ideas about how you can help but you  know your abilities far better than I do." Illusions were pretty much a  staple of kitsune stories, but their other powers tended to vary wildly.  It was better to hear what should could do directly from her.

An  approving gleam crossed Hana's eye, there and then gone in a flash, but  she seamlessly fell into an explanation of her powers. "The usual stuff  of course, shapeshifting is good for infiltrating hostage groups,  illusions are excellent for moving forces unseen but one of the biggest  assets will be foxfire. Foxfire is illusionary flame, as in it burns  illusions. It chews right through stealth magics and glamours, which  will be a big asset against what I'm assuming are Black Court. You said  undead so I wasn't sure though."

My  eyebrows went up "That definitely is useful. Your foxfire can reveal  the hidden vampires for us? Will it work on all of them? Because if so  that's a game changer. We have the muscle to crush them, the stealth is  our biggest problem in the raid." If foxfire just wiped out stealth  magic and could mass reveal them all we could have Kara and Cinder mop  them up with heat vision and Fall fire. Somehow I doubted it would be  that easy though. If a kitsune was just a magic anti stealth EMP I  doubted she would be charging so little.

As  expected I got a head shake "Not all of them. The weak ones will be  revealed easily, the older ones most likely have too much power in their  spells, not to mention have probably run across kitsune before. It's  not all powerful, but it'll be damn useful against a large group.  Minimize the number of opponents you need to guard against. Honestly I'm  kind of glad you found me, if I'd known there was a nest of Black Court  in the city I probably wouldn't have come. As you can imagine they  really don't like kitsune. We're as rare as we are because the Black  Court, among others, hunted us near to extinction because of our  foxfire."

That  was interesting. Sad, but interesting. My luck was better than i  thought. Still I felt for her, and gave her an encouraging smile. "If  all goes well they'll all be gone before the week is up. You won't need  to worry about them bothering you here, by the time we're finished,  vampires will flinch when they hear the WORD Chicago." Her grin this  time was less vulpine and more wolfish, clearly happy with the idea.  Rather and order, she thanked me for the meeting and told me to call her  when it was time to move. She would keep her schedule open for a few  days.

Once  she was gone I turned to the girls. I raised an eyebrow at Barb. "I'm  surprised you didn't say anything. Rae is the silent type when meeting  new people but it's not like you to keep silent during negotiations.  Care to let me in on the plan?' My redhead was enjoying her sandwich, an  activity I quickly joined back in on, though mine was starting to get a  bit cold sadly. It was still delicious though and I listened intently  as I dug in. Barb had much more experience in things like this than I  did, tune up or not, ignoring her opinion would be unforgivably stupid.

She  didn't bother to stop eating as she talked, getting her words out  between bites, much to Raven's obvious disgust. "I decided to play the  ditz. She already saw me with Morgan acting like arm candy, no need to  give away more than we have to in case she isn't on the up and up." She  took another bite, finishing her sandwich and washing it down with a  swig of root beer. "That said my initial impression is that she's legit.  Not that we should trust her, but she's the kind of merc who abides  their contract."

I  glanced to Raven in query and she nodded. "She didn't lie directly  about anything important. Her distaste for the vampires in particular is  especially strong. She will most likely hold up her end of the deal as  long as they're the targets. She wasn't as dismissive of Barbara as she  was hoping, she did notice you and identified the way you carried  yourself and your musculature. She thought your attempts at subterfuge  were cute." She giggled at our girlfriends pout "Don't be so hard on  yourself love, she does this for a living."

Barb  grumbled but started in on her fries as Raven and i went back to  enjoying our sandwiches. We got to talking about nothing and everything  and it made me smile to have a chance to go out on a real date with just  the two of them, even if it started as a meeting with a japanese shape  shifting mercenary. In the end we even decided to get dessert. Mac had  baked alaska for some reason and we'd all always wanted to try it. It  was pretty amazing.