The plan’s obvious lack of wrinkles was a product of the fact that Lucian insisted on railroading Vincent at every single turn. Secure the ground floor with a holy seal (okay, but what about the bad actors that were human?). Split the remaining officers into two squads (dramatic, but sure). Enter one through the known entrance to the basement, while the other slipped through a low-set window Lucian’s squad discovered on their trek around the perimeter (why this window specifically? There were a few submerged windows already on the floor plan that seemed equally as adequate). This would hopefully (and Vincent sure loved the phrase “hopefully” in his mission plans) box the criminals, the witch, and the hostages into the nebulous basement interior which appeared, on their schematics, to have no points of egress.

“…And while the two police squads secure the hostages, Brother St. Clair and I will handle the witch.”

We’ll do what, now?

Vincent blinked, twice.

Two blinks of the eye while posessed meant “no”. Lucian ignored him, again.

The beady-eyed detective gave the two of them another appraising glance. Vincent could tell he wanted, badly, to be reassured in their (exceptionally shaky) competence. Meanwhile, Vincent really, really wanted to stick it to Lucian and call this whole plan into question - not even because the plan was terrible, necessarily, but because it was clearly designed with Lucian (and, Vincent, by association) as the star in mind. However, with the attention of the remaining 13 troopers still fixed on them, undermining the "leadership" and the "authority" of the exorcist outfit in such a fashion would have been the… rather ill-advised thing to do. So instead, Vincent grinned broadly and nodded his head, feigning absolute agreement and making sure to also nod his head to the young police woman. She looked to have avoided being mauled by a werewolf, and that made him happy to see.

Even if she was (probably) about to march right back into something significantly worse.

Vincent was never one to entertain doubts about his own abilities - there were plenty of other people to do that for him, and most of them thus far have been wrong. And Lucian, as much as it made Vincent’s insides feel like curdled milk to acknowledge this, really was a gifted exorcist. Not quite as good as Vincent, of course. But boy could hold his own. Still. Lucian and him were not even officially ordained. They’d handled witches and Demons of the Minor Circles, but it was always under the guidance of Father Peter. The hierarchy and Covenhood of witches and their demonic familiars was dizzying on a good day, and one wrong appraisal of the specific peculiarities of your opponent could end up being your last. The knowledge that there was someone who could navigate that mental maze faster - better - than yourself was what had kept the fear of being wrong at bay.

Then again… Father Peter was lying motionless on a gurney with an alchemist’s healing salve shoved up one of the many places in a human body that a moon was not supposed to shine… And Vincent was standing here, upright, after winning a one-on-one fight with a demon-possessed corpse, devising the plans for a funeral that hopefully wasn’t going to be his own.

Maybe he was as well-equipped for this as anyone.

At least, right now, that was what he needed to believe.