Sunshine: Tales of an Assassin

Chapter Two

***Katrina's POV***

    I sat in my bosses office with my handler, my boss, and three very disheveled and sheepish looking males.  Needless to say I was right that my boss was blaming me, after all, I didn't stop the fight, though I'm not sure how I can be held responsible for the behaviors of these three stooges, I'm still trying to process what happened, and trying to get my ass to stop throbbing since these guys started their brawl so fast and close to me when I tried to get to an angle to stop it, I ended up getting knocked on my rear, right in front of the re-enforcements that Matthew had sent without me knowing it.

    "SUNSHINE!"  Lydia yelled a clear command in her voice.  "Did your ears get damaged as well as those pancakes you call ass cheeks? Or am I just boring you?"

    "No ma'am, I'm listening, you were just asking how I let the three stooges here get into this fight and why I didn't stop it, and I'm trying to figure out why they even started the fight in the first place.  I don't see anything in this situation that would cause three others to break out in a sudden fight like that when they were fine a moment before."  I saw Matthew cover his mouth to hide his expression while Lydia's lip twitched for a moment at my current name for the three, they all jolted with varying expressions, Dominick's perhaps the most confused, while Nathanial looked mildly offended, and Alexander had half a smirk.

    "Excuse me, but can you explain to me why you have a human here and why you are calling her Sunshine?  I'm certain that this woman's name is Katrina."  I rolled my eyes, this witch with a stick up his rear certainly can't be the Dom I knew as a kid, he didn't seem to have a problem with humans, this one seems to have an issue with them.

    "How exactly have you survived outside a coven as long as you have with your head shoved so far up your anus that you actually think that she" Lydia pointed at me with one finger," is a normal human?  Are your senses dead or are you just that egotistical that you believe everything at first glance."  

    The two shifters were pointedly looking at the witch, who was looking between Lydia and I with a touch of confusion.  I was just studying my nails looking for chips or to see if I needed to reapply the nail polish, seemed chip free so might have to get more colors in this brand.

    "You two can tell she is human right?"  Dominick looked between the two shifters trying to prove his point.

    "I knew that there was someone...unique and potentially important to me in the bar, and I know my wolf didn't like you touching her."  Alexander answered softly, his voice rich and easy on the ears, but his answer left me just as confused as before, while I saw Matthew's eye twitch and the quick look that he took at the shifters before looking back to Lydia.

    "I also scented something unusual, beyond that I felt a minor change and something trying to push away that feeling after you came in, it confused my feline for a moment, but neither of us liked you approaching the woman from behind." Nathanial commented, looks like his fur was no longer ruffled from my three stooges comment.  Personally I was feeling a strong urge to shock someone and watch them twitch.

    "Sunshine, light zap, no permanent damage, and drop shields after."  Lydia kept her eyes on Dominick, a smug look on her face, evidently potential allies or not, she wasn't going to let anyone question her people.

    "Thanks boss," I grinned now, and offered my hand towards the witch that was pissing me off.  "Hand please."  I also ignored the growls from the other two stooges.  

    Dominick placed his hand in mine, like there was nothing to worry about, oh boy was he about to get a shock, literally as well as figuratively.  I pushed the electric feeling through my arm into my hand and pushed it through his body, smirking as every muscle in his body went into sudden incontrollable spasms.  I dropped his hand quickly after that, as well as my shields, and watched the three stooges freak out a bit as my emotions started overriding theirs.  Surprising me though, was the feel of their emotions, desire, curiosity, sorrow, and confusion, all warring within the three.

    "Sunshine here is a rarity, she is a psychically gifted human.  She joined our team several years ago, and isn't exactly a normal human anymore." 

     Feeling all their emotions right now was giving me a headache, so I put my shields back up and shifted the ice pack I was sitting on, not sure if it was more uncomfortable with or without it, but at least it gave ma a chance to avoid the stooges.

    There was a knock on the door, Lydia didn't bother moving her eyes or shifting, but Matthew got up from his seat and came closer to me as Lydia called for the person to enter, if we got many more people in here, we'd have to sit on each other's laps.  One of our receptionists stuck her head in with a nervous smile. 

    "Sorry to interrupt but you asked me to let you know when Mr. Miller got here and to bring him straight away to this room."

    "Thank you Jillian, please bring Mr. Miller in." Lydia stated calmly, while mentally I was pondering who Mr. Miller was and ignoring the odd looks from the shifters, the witch wasn't really looking me in the eye now, guess he didn't like being wrong.

    In walked a blond man in a business suit, smiling slightly at Lydia which showed a hint of fang.  Well seems we are just going to try for a full house of others tonight.  Lydia stood up and offered her hand to Mr. Miller, which he shook before taking the seat that Matthew had vacated to stand next to me, I watched as he scanned the people in the room, pausing on me for a moment, his eyes flashing from brown to black and then back to brown, before addressing Lydia.

    "I understand that you asked me to come to United, but I am at a loss as to why or that this would be a large group meeting.  Ms. Hershall, since I am not aligned with United may I know why you would request my presence at one of your meetings?"  His voice was a nice tenor, and while it was said softly, one could still hear the strength in those words.

    "Please call me Lydia, and we found ourselves in a rather interesting situation tonight that completely botched one of our missions, so at this moment, to ensure that there is no more confusion or potentially worse repercussions, I felt it was in the best interest to talk with everyone that was involved in this to formulate a plan."

    "I see, well then, please call me Nick, and please tell me what exactly was messed up?"  Mr. Miller, who I now had to think was the Nicholas I'd been briefed on earlier now had an edge to his voice.  "Though perhaps introductions are in order first?"

    "Very well, as we are all here, we have Alexander and Nathanial, both from shifter clans, and Dominick, a witch.   These three are also not aligned with United."  The men nodded to each other politely as they were introduced.  "Gentlemen, this is Nicholas from one of the vampire families here.  Matthew here is one of our handlers for some of our special agents, and this is Sunshine, our agent who was working tonight, Matthew would actually be her handler."

    Nicholas nodded to Matthew, but held out his hand to me, figuring he was interested in a handshake, as he had with Lydia I offered my hand to him, only to feel him tug it a little harder, raising it to his lips as he placed a kiss on the back of my hand with cool lips.  Both shifters let loose small growls, while Dominick's aura flared, Nicholas didn't seem to pay any attention as he released my hand and settled back in his seat.  What is wrong with all these males, not a one of them is behaving in a normal fashion and all this growling was just getting rather annoying at this point.

    "Now that introductions are done, on to business before we address the other issue in the room."  Lydia stated with a shake of her head, and I felt Matthew shaking a little from some repressed emotion, personally I just wanted to know how we were going to deal with the little turd nugget Gabriel now since my whole mission was blown to hell and the chances of me catching him in that particular bar again were fairly slim.  

    "It had come to United's attention that there was a warlock in the area that was breaking several laws between all the races, and was utilizing multiple black markets to help fund his business to keep making it look like it was legit.  Sunshine was assigned to infiltration as well as attempting to gain information about where he was keeping products that were being sold in the black market.  However, as events played out tonight, she was unable to complete her mission for multiple reasons.  So please tell me gentlemen, as I would love to know, what exactly is your connection with Gabriel Andoras.?"

    I felt the weight in the room, and how the shift in feeling, this was going to suck big time.  Lydia was part Angel, part Fey, and personally given what she could do, I was never comfortable asking what type on either side for her, but I knew this feeling all too well, those in the room could now only speak the truth, and would probably feel pretty darn good while they did it, which meant I'd better keep my mouth shut as much as possible, given the last time she did this, I let is slip that she scared the piss out of me and did it with a smile on my face feeling like I was on cloud nine as I did so.  Not my favorite memory.

    "I've no problem explaining my actions, simply put for me, it was business, I really had not been aware of any other issues, as I've been away for a while, but his front was causing some issues for some of the smaller businesses some of my family have been working on starting up, causing him problems with what I thought were his primary businesses would cause him to pull back from other areas causing him to ignore the smaller where he was causing issues for my people.  Had I been aware of his other deeds, I may not have been so nice in my approach."  Nicholas shrugged while Lydia nodded, older vampires did tend to get lost in their own worlds and thoughts, so it would make sense that if he had not known a vampire directly effected by what Gabriel was doing, he wouldn't know.

    "One of our younger females, barely more than a girl, was picked up by that bastard, and I'm sure you don't need me to tell you what he did to her."  Nathanial stated, his eyes going golden while I felt his rage at the edges of my shield, as a matter of self defense from an impending headache, I started to take the energy of that rage from him, while sending back calm energy.  He slowly relaxed back into his seat, eyes shifting from gold to green.  "We have someone with her at all times now, to ensure she doesn't do anything to rash, but she will be scarred for life do to his actions."

    "A rogue had gotten his hands on a specialized bullets, designed to kill wolf shifters, which it did, a young male of my pack was defending a female from being taken, he didn't survive the bullet, but held off the rogue long enough for help to show up for the girl."  Alexander had the same issues as Nathanial, and once again I ended up needing to use my gift, though I was starting to feel a bit tired, seeing as I normally didn't need to use this many gifts this often and it was taking a lot out of me.

    Dominick looked at the others as they waited on him to answer, then quite calmly responded "He's a warlock, the name alone shows he's a traitor, and gives a bad name to us witches."  

    Lydia and Matthew nodded and exchanged looks back and forth, I was too tired to worry about it, and instead was trying to remember if I had a change of clothes and shoes in my locker in the gym here, I loved these heels but at this point my feet were killing me after wearing them for this long.  I was pondering if I could slip them off and rub my feet without flashing everyone in the room when Lydia decided that she was going to confront the other issue in the room.

    "Well, now that we understand why you blasted our mission to hell and back with your actions, I'd like to hear exactly why you are all having issues interacting with Sunshine here."  

    Oh now that is more interesting than sore feet.  Spill it stooges!