“All right,” I interrupted Lance, “let me explain what we’re doing, okay?”

He nodded eagerly.  “Yeah, of course!  Go ahead!  I know it’s a centaur and a nightwing, and maybe some more if they show up, but we don’t know, and then there’s the four of us, but you’re like making plans for how to trap them, right?  And something about talking to them first?  Are they old friends or something?  Are we – ”

Again, I decided that waiting for a natural pause in his words wasn’t going to happen, so I just made one.  “We’re dealing with a female nightwing and male centaur who used to be part of a gang and are upset that I turned on their boss and killed them.”  At least Lance shut up whenever someone else started talking and didn’t try to talk over them.  I just wasn’t sure if there was any way to get him to stop talking unless someone else started talking, because he didn’t seem to have an end to his words otherwise.  “I’ve got someone looking into their contacts as much as possible online, so we can try to narrow down their routine.  Currently, they’re working at an underground casino.  The place has some serious muscle and is more of a supernatural hangout, so trying to set up a police raid wouldn’t work so well.”  I’d actually considered it, but asking police to go against a bunch of supernaturals who would have very good reason not to want to just go nicely was probably a bad idea.  Plus, well, sure, if they were arrested, I could potentially talk to them without fear of them responding, but it wouldn’t do any good if the conclusion was that I’d have to kill them.  I couldn’t exactly do that in a police station without getting into trouble myself, which we were trying to avoid.  So no police.

I saw Lance open his mouth, so I made myself continue before he started asking questions or coming up with anecdotes or whatever he was about to do.

“The nightwing apparently serves drinks, but that’s just her cover.  She actually helps the centaur and several of the other casino staff cheat the customers out of money.”  Again, I’d thought about whether I could use that to my advantage, by revealing to the customers that they were being fleeced, but I figured that was a better backup plan.  I’d rather just face this myself than hope to annoy them with other angry supernaturals who might or might not do the job for me.

“The centaur handles one of the tables, usually, but he apparently doubles as a bouncer.  There’s a police report where he beat up someone pretty badly when they couldn’t pay up what they owed.”  Supernatural police, of course.  “I don’t think getting inside the casino will help at all.  I did consider whether we could call the police on them, use patrons against them, even pull a fire alarm – but none of those are good methods.  We need to get these people when their guard is down and they’re not expecting any confrontation.  I think it’s best that we just corner them on their way home one day.”

I laid out a diagram on the table.  “This is the casino,” I pointed to a building marked in red, “and these,” I pointed out some other buildings, several blocks away, “are their houses.  They live next to each other, in townhouses, and they usually walk home.  I don’t want to confront them in their houses.  There’s too much of a risk of other people nearby hearing something if it turns violent, which I strongly suspect.  There’s also the possibility of hearth magic, especially with the nightwing.  So that leaves us with this area in between.”  I kind of waved in a circle over the streets.  “They usually head straight home, along this route, but sometimes they’ll take a detour to this convenience store to buy drinks or – well, I don’t know.  Stuff.  I think the detour’s going to be our best chance.  When they go that route, they have to come along here,” I tapped an intersection, “which is basically an alleyway between a warehouse and a factory that turns along to a narrow path between the back of the warehouse and the side of a warehouse-turned-shopping-area.  The shopping area closes several hours before they should be there – based on casino hours – so there shouldn’t be anyone in it, plus there aren’t doors on this side, anyway.  Basically, this should give us a way to easily trap them in an unpopulated area without giving them a good way to run off.  The downside is it’s not a lot of space to maneuver in.”  I glanced at Lance.  “That might be a benefit to you, actually, because my guess is the centaur will be at more of a disadvantage in a small space than you would be.”

He nodded and opened his mouth again to respond, but Alessia cut him off this time.

“I bet I could get up on a fire escape or even the roof, see if I can’t get an overhead view of them and aim better for ranged weapon purposes.”  She looked thoughtfully at the photos I had of the area, shifting through them slowly.  “Looks like a couple of good potentials, and they shouldn’t have a lot of cover.  Technically they could get close to the building I’m on and make it harder, but,” she grinned darkly, “we’re talking magic weapons, not real ones, so I might not be as restricted in my ability to target them if I can’t see them as they might think.”

“You think up there would be better than on the ground with us?”  Leo asked, respectfully.  I was kind of impressed that their introduction had gone off without a hitch, but then, Alessia didn’t care if he’d helped subdue her friend back then and Leo was too polite to express his doubts about her to her face, so whatever.  “In the chance something went wrong,” he added, “you would be at a disadvantage, being away from the rest of the group and having to maneuver down to the ground.”  He glanced briefly at her cane, but didn’t mention it directly.

Alessia actually took time to consider that.  “Okay, fair, if I got trapped up there by more people than I could handle, or someone with a ranged weapon themselves, yeah, that could be messy.  I’d have to get up there in advance, too, since I can’t exactly just run up a fire escape anymore.”  She grimaced.  “But unless somehow they were able to get friends there, I feel like the roof is the best spot for me.  I can hide easier, they would have a harder time escaping me, and they wouldn’t be able to tell from there that I’m, uh, more limited.  That’s part of the point of how we’re handling this, we don’t want them to realize that you,” she nodded at me, “or I aren’t at full demon or naga capabilities.”

I frowned a little as I thought about both sides.  “I get that,” I agreed slowly, “but I am concerned about what happens if we need to make a hasty retreat – which hopefully won’t happen, but still, I’d rather plan for the possibility.  If you’re there with us, we can help, but if you’re on the roof…I don’t want to end up leaving you behind if something goes wrong.”

“Dude, you’re a freaking demon!  Just jump off,” Lance volunteered.  “Do demons even break bones at three or four stories?  No?  I’d think no, but then I don’t really know for sure.  I haven’t had a lot of experience with demons and their injuries and capabilities.  When I heard there was a gym run by a demon, I was hoping to see one in action.  Not gonna lie, I was kind of disappointed when I found out that wouldn’t happen, but you’re still a demon, you can still survive stuff even if your ears or whatever are messed up.  Just jump off, and if you break something, we just, uh, throw you over our shoulder and run off?  I dunno, whatever is necessary under the circumstances.  But you’re not not a demon anymore just because your ears are messed up.”

Alessia stared at him for a second, then looked back at the map.  “Didn’t think about that,” she admitted before he could take a breath to start his next sentence.  “That would work.  I shouldn’t break bones from that height, no, but I wouldn’t be able to get up and run afterwards, either – might be a bit stunned for a few moments.  But still, fastest way down, yeah.”   Then, more under her breath as an aside to me, “kind of surprised he’s the one that thought of that, too.”

Lance grinned cheerfully.

“So then,” I looked back at the map, “my plan is Lance, you focus on the centaur.  I’m thinking you’re right about you being faster on your feet than him and Alessia says you’re promising on boxing.  Keep in mind, though, this guy has been known to carry a gun.  You may have to disarm him if you can.”

“I can help with that,” Alessia grunted.  “If either of them is armed, I’ll try to target the weapon.  Or their hand holding it.  Enough to make them have difficulty using it, at least.”

“I’ll also need you to try to help me with the nightwing,” I warned her.  I saw the nightwing as the more dangerous opponent, hence I planned to handle her.  “She has magic, and that’s going to be a problem.  If I can get close enough to bite her, that should help, but she’ll know that and try to keep me at range.”

“I can assist both of you in providing ranged cover,” Leo stated.  “But we shall all need to be careful not to have friendly fire.  I would hate to accidentally harm either Madden or Lance while aiming for those two.”

A very good point.  “Agreed, I’d rather not accidentally take a demon arrow to my head,” I muttered.  “Yeah, Alessia, Leo, you’re going to have to be careful once Lance or I are in melee range.  Leo, I’d like to have you positioned in a different location, so you could potentially provide fire from a different direction than Alessia, and maybe even be behind them if we can aim them right.  I wouldn’t mind you hiding, in shifted form if you have to, and waiting until the last moment before basically sniping them if you’re able.  If they don’t realize there’s another person there, they may not guard that side, which may give you a better shot.  But we’ll just have to see how it plays out.”

“I can also provide some melee combat assistance,” he reminded me.  “I am not as skilled at that, but can assist with the nightwing if necessary.  Shifters do heal faster than many other supernaturals, so in the event we need to consider using me as a distraction so you can get close enough to bite her, that may be an option.”

It wasn’t an option I particularly liked.  I knew he meant he would basically draw her attention and purposely allow her to injure him with magic, but I also knew Ambrose would be upset if I intentionally let his brother get hurt, even if it was so we could win in the end.  Plus, well, this was my fight.  They were helping me, but I really didn’t want any of them to get hurt if I could help it.

“You still planning on offering them an out?”  Alessia asked.

I sighed.  “I want to.  It doesn’t feel fair to just jump them and plan to kill them without offering them a chance to opt out of the killing part.  Thing is, I can’t imagine it would work.  Bob, he was one thing.  He was never as bloodthirsty as these two.  I’m fairly certain that the only way I could get them to agree to a truce is if they thought I was stronger than they are and knew I’d kill them if they tried again.  But on top of them just being more likely to rather fight than talk, if you’re hidden and so is Leo, it means they’d just see Lance and me.  My guess is they’d rather take their chances with just two people – even if I tell them there are more they can’t see – and that they wouldn’t see us as enough of a threat.  Nothing against you,” I added with a glance at the satyr, “it’s more of a them thing.  I don’t think they’d see anyone as a serious threat unless they were seriously outnumbered, like five to one, maybe.”

“Sounds like offering them a truce would be pointless,” Leo agreed.

Yeah.  There was a difference between trying to be fair and just being dumb.  In this case, pausing to offer them a truce seemed to be leaning more towards dumb.

“Offer it after you’ve subdued them, before you take the final blow,” Alessia suggested.  “Then they have to realize their lives are at stake and that you clearly can back up your threat.  You don’t have to offer it at the beginning of the conversation.”

“Fair.  Yeah, okay, that works.  I offer a truce after subduing them.  Which means,” I leveled a firm look at Lance, “if you think you can take a killing blow on the centaur, don’t do it unless you have to.  Subduing is the goal, but if it’s clear that’s not going to happen, I don’t want you putting your life at risk, either.”

“Oh, yeah, sure, if that’s what you want.  It could be fun, really, trying to fight dance more to just take him down than kill him.  That’s kinda different from most supernatural fights, ya know?  Not deliberately trying to.  ‘Course, things can happen in a fight and you never know for sure if you can control stuff like that.  Take my uncle, he was in this fight, thought he had the upper hand, then wham reinforcement appeared and he had to run for his life.  Pop always told him he shouldn’t try to harass cops because they’d just call for backup, but he never took that seriously.  He’s locked away now, and Pop says it’s his own fault because he was stupid.  But it wasn’t from that.  He got away that time, but then he did this thing where he was trying to break into the prison to free his girlfriend and his girlfriend hadn’t told him she’d already gotten bailed out by her ‘other’ boyfriend and so man was he pissed about that but then too he was already in the prison, he figured why not just let them all out.  Didn’t turn out so well for him, I mean, sure, he let out a bunch of people, but some of them weren’t great people and kinda made things really bad for other people when they escaped, so then a bunch of people were mad at my uncle and turned him in.  Can’t really blame them, and Pop stopped going to visit him eventually because Uncle would always whine about how it wasn’t fair that here he’d broken people out but no one would come and break him out, and Pop told him he was being stupid and should just grow up a bit, so then they had this argument and haven’t talked for a while.”

I kind of lost track of the stream of words and decided maybe it was time to shut him down.

“I’m going to let you all know when I decide the day of attack is,” I interrupted.  “Right now we’re analyzing whether there’s any regularity to their convenience store trips so we can try to anticipate when to strike in advance, instead of all of us hanging out there for a while just waiting for it to happen.”  Which was honestly a waste of our time and a danger because it increased the chances of us being spotted.  “So I’ll let you know, and I’ll try to give some advance notice.  Meanwhile, please practice or spar or whatever you need to do to be as prepared as possible.  And make sure you try to get plenty of sleep just in case it does end up being a sudden thing.”

They all nodded in agreement, and I waited until Lance and Leo left before giving Alessia a look, one eyebrow raised.