WHO: Charlie McGee, Kathy McAvera, and Angel (with a guest appearance by an NPC'd demon) WHAT: The Senior Partners decide to kick things up a notch. WHEN: January 29th; about 6PM WHERE: The gardens of the Hyperion Hotel RATING: TBD STATUS: In Progress
It was only by sheer happenstance that Charlie learned of the latest plan by the Senior Partners to torment their greatest adversary. She was returning from a job that involved a man who refused to repay the loan of a rather powerful client of the firm. Needless to say, she had a wad of cash in her pocket and was in pretty decent spirits at how smoothly the 'negotiations' had gone when she heard the comment from a couple of passing mail clerks.
"... telling you, I heard the call being placed myself. Those G'lantha demons don't kid around."
"Well, they're not considered some of the deadliest assasins for nothing, you know. But I still can't believe they'd agree to go after a kid like that."
The final sentence, really, was all it took to guarantee Charlie's interest in the water cooler gossip. Without missing a beat she stepped in the path of the two men and began firing questions at them. By the time their impromptu chat was over, she was in a mixture of anger and shock, with a faint sense of betrayal tossed into the mix.
And, when all was said and done and the clerks had hurried along their way, she became a woman with a mission.
The hit was set to happen at six o'clock. That gave her just fifteen minutes. Nevermind that she knew virtually nothing about the demons that had been hired to do the job. They could be completely unstoppable, or at the very least fireproof, yet Charlie didn't care. They were going after a child. And, what's worse, they had been hired by the firm to do the deed.
Feeling slightly sick to her stomach but no less determined to put a stop to the death of an innocent kid, Charlie broke nearly every traffic law in the state on her mad dash across town. She rounded the corner, her goal coming into sight, just in time to see the two hulking, lumbering forms of the demons moving silently through the shadows toward their target.
"No!" Charlie all but screamed, her motorcycle roaring loudly as she aimed straight for the duo. She came to a stop a few feet away and barely had time to switch the bike off before she was on her feet and dashing toward them. "Stop! The deal is off!"
Unfortunately, while she was known around the firm as Lindsey McDonald's veritable right hand, she wasn't actually a lawyer. In fact, she didn't even technically work for Wolfram & Hart so much as for the CEO of the L.A. branch. Therefore, the demons didn't recognize her authority and merely gave her positively terrifying grins with their mouthful of razor-sharp teeth before continuing toward the gate that signaled the edge of the property.
Glancing past them, to the gardens, Charlie saw the young girl sitting near the fountain. The doors to her residence were less than ten feet away. Maybe, she thought, just maybe if she could get the girl to run inside, she would be safe. There were others inside who could protect her, after all.
It was the best option she had and, before she could think about any flaws that might come from the plan, Charlie's feet were already carrying her past the demons and over the fence. Landing smoothly on the other side, her hazel eyes wide and a flush spread across her cheeks, she pinned Kathy McAvera with a look of pure horror.
"Get insi-"
She didn't see if the girl understood and obeyed, or not. For no sooner had the words begun to leave her mouth did she hear a loud snarl of rage and felt herself lifted a good two feet into the air. The claws of one of the demons dug into her back painfully and she idly realized that he'd just ripped her leather jacket. Then she was airborn, the hard stone of the fountain stopping her flight. She heard a crunch of bone and bit back a cry of pain as her wrist took the brunt of the blow and shattered beneath the impact.
Gravity finally took hold and Charlie fell into the cold water. She struggled to her knees and came up coughing, blond hair falling into her eyes as she turned her attention to the demons.
Just in time to see them charge the girl.
Without thought, without much of anything besides a determination to not let an innocent child get hurt, Charlie scrambled from the fountain and dove at Kathy herself. Her wrist screamed in protest as she wrapped her arms tightly around the child and murmured softly in her ear, "I'm not going to hurt you."
Then she closed her eyes and forced her power outward with as much strength as she could muster. The flames that erupted in the garden around them shot to heights nearly double the size of the Hyperion itself. The snarls of the demons could barely be heard through the inferno that raged in her ears.
If that didn't get someone's attention, Charlie decided, nothing else would.