Gabriel the Hunter

Tatiana, as Grif would find, was being kept in a facility approximately underneath the Domitilla Catacombs of Rome. Though designed much like the catacombs, with a multitude of rooms and a lot of ground to cover, it was very obviously made of modern technology. The walls were lined with reinforced steel, though the security system was somewhat dated; the doors were fixed with coded keypads, cameras and motion detectors were rare and scattered around seemingly at random, and there didn't seem to be anything build into the structure, technologically, to repeal possible invaders. It was, more obviously, a prison; designed to keep things trapped, accessible only from the catacombs themselves.

Montague and Mereiya, simultaneously, greeted him with concern when he entered his office. Where Mereiya was short, with deceptively slender limbs and a generally butch style, Montague was tall, somewhere just short of toned, and tended to be overdressed. His red hair was accented by the explosion of freckles on his face, and he more and more he looked perpetually worried. Gabriel was going to have to do something to change that; Monty was just a researcher, especially since he was still a stupid, and not a Hunter.

"It's bad," he said flatly, watching them exchange a look. "Just tell me how bad."

Monty laid out the technical side. Though nobody but Grif would have an accurate guess of what the place would look at, he had gone into possible weaponry. The Vatican was currently found of incendiary bullets that had a very limited burst range upon impact, designed for use against undead and deadly effective. They also, he warned, were likely to use old-fashioned methods: swords made of blessed steel that could slice through flesh like butter, wood-tipped crossbows and small exploding capsules of blessed water. They might, he added, use flamethrowers too; it wasn't unheard of.

Mereiya was short about it. "They'll call upon the blessed dead."

"The blessed dead?"

Christian bones and holy relics, the remains of the dead reappropriated to use against the supernatural. There were certain potent forms of magic handling that was enhanced through such articles that could conjure up just about anything. "It's rumored they can even revive the bones, create an army."

Gabriel was aghast. "That's necromancy."

Mereiya shrugged, chewing her lip. She still went to Mass every Sunday, he knew. "Not if the Church does it."

Gabriel resisted the urge to drop his head into his hands. Could he do this? Could he ask a group of strangers to fight this thing for people they might never know?

"What now?" Monty asked, sounding hopeful.

"Now you two are officially uninvolved, and I don't want to hear a word of argument about it. I'll gather the people from Xanadu, we'll come up with something. Uhm." He rubbed his eyes. "I've got to tell Brisbane."

The two of them exchange another look that Gabriel couldn't possibly miss.

"Oh, for - he knows? How long as he known?"

"Maybe awhile," Montague offered, hesitant. Mereiya nodded, silent, as Monty's eyes flickered to the door behind Gabriel. "He went over our work separately."

"Was everything I did to keep this quiet from you pointless?" Gabriel turned to look at Brisbane, standing in the doorway as if he had been there the whole time. Maybe he had been there the whole time. Somehow, someway, Brisbane had that ability over him.

The older man walked over to the group, reaching out to clamp a hand on Gabriel's shoulder. He was shorter by a few inches, but it never really seemed that way. "No, it wasn't. This is something I never could have done." Brisbane tightened the grip before letting go. "Thank you, Gabriel."

"What now?" Monty repeated.

Brisbane smiled. It wasn't a very nice smile, but it wasn't meant for anyone in the room. "Now I'm going to get my little girl back."

He didn't yell, when it came down to it. Even though the urge to do so had been increasing every day Brisbane put him off, every moment he was sure the man was avoiding him, he could feel it ease away when he got his boss alone in his office. The floor had been repaired to the point where n one would realize it had been torn apart, but he knew the files that that were hidden there had probably been moved. Brisbane had good reason to have them, he was sure. That fact that they existed didn't bother him.

The anger may have been gone, but the reason behind it was not. "Why did you lie to me?"

Gabriel did not expect the silence. It was a long time before Brisbane answered him; instead, he sat at his desk, hands knitted together, studying his second-in-command. Studied him, in that way Gabriel had seen him look at so many others before. It unnerved him, but he couldn't put his finger on why. When Brisbane finally spoke, his words were heavy and quiet.

"They're hurting her."

That was weeks ago. October was a busy time, especially toward the end of the month. It was not because the supernatural conformed to a industry-driven superstition to sell candy. It was because humans did, and in doing so they made themselves more readily available to the Other. Doors were opened that should always remained closed, things were summoned that should have been left alone. There were also the regular monsters, the vampires, the skin-takers, and the rare Were clan that sought human flesh. It was easy for them to take advantage of the Hunters' increased business.

The paperwork aftermath was alone a nightmare.

He worked hard. He put in overtime, he cut back on his sleep. It was all he could do. That's all anyone could do. He understood why Brisbane lied, why he avoided Gabriel for the longest time.

The Vatican had Tatiana. They were hurting her, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

"Why?" he had asked, but it was unnecessary. He had worked for the Vatican's Hunters for too long not to know how they operated, how their line of thinking went. It didn't matter that the crazy claim that Tatiana was the physical manifestation of anything, much less the allegorical Whore of Babylon, couldn't be true. She was a threat. It was easier to deal with threats than tolerate them.

He was running out of paperwork, even after coming through his reports for errors multiple times. Half the head office was set to revolt against him. The half-jokes to tie him down and put him under house arrest were becoming more serious by the day. Last he heard, either Mereiya or Joan Kiel would be chosen for the job. Both of them would cheerfully challenge his authority on the spot.

He told his secretary, a bright young man saddled with an unfortunately long Hunting name (everyone called him Jay), that he was taking three days off, just to see the man's jaw drop. When he left the building, he was still chuckling.

He thought about it as he grabbed a few cases of beer on the way home. How bad it was that taking time off was deliberately shocking. How he drank more in private but was careful to keep his public consumption to a minimum. How he wasn't any less of an addict just because he had changed what he was addicted to.

How changed his reputation had become; no one, for years now, questioned by he had been given such a higher level Hunting name versus the usually invoked places and saints.

Mostly, he thought about Tatiana.

None of the games he'd tivoed interested him. He flicked through a collection of cop shows and far-from-reality reality tv before clicking the television off, staring into the dark screen.

There was nothing he could do.

The flames cast shadows on the walls, the dancing screaming dead. The library was burning, burning, the pages of the books turning black before bursting into flame. He saw his own pages turn - his parents telling him not to come home again, the snarling bloody teeth of the dying, hunting, Hunter -

In the flames other things else danced, dead but alive. Something with horns, too many horns, and a skull without eyes. It danced closer as the others just died, and then -

And then he woke again, staring up at the white ceiling, his head in a haze of pain.

When they asked him what he dreamed about, he said he didn't know.

Bio
Name: Michael St. James
Alias: Gabriel, "moonblood"
Age: 33

History: Michael was born to a 'clan' - what his family jokingly called the collection of relatives that lived in a small town in Oregon. He was the youngest of four. When he was six, his parents sent him to live with his well-to-do aunt and uncle in Los Angeles, California for better 'education'. Growing up, Michael felt resentful and had the notion he had been sent away, and tried several methods of rebellion - drugs, alcohol, girls.

When Michael was sixteen, he started noticing strange things about the people around him. The shadows of people sometimes didn't match their shape. Sometimes when he stared at statues, they seemed to be staring back. He thought he heard things no one else seem to hear, smell things no one else. He thought it was the drugs, so being sixteen, he took more.

At seventeen, he dropped out of school and considered joining a gang. Instead, he managed to stumble into a Buddhist temple, and decided converting would irritate his distant parents more. He eventually got serious enough to study the religion, and attend the rehab program his aunt and uncle were pressuring him to enter.

At nineteen, he got his GED and enrolled in a community college, intending to move onto studying psychology. The day he turned twenty, he came home to find that his relatives had been murdered, town to pieces by something inhuman.

A few days later, he met a man named Brisbane, and learned the joke about his family being a clan wasn't a joke after all.

For the last several years of his life he has operated as a Hunter, working for quite some time with the Catholic Church and other religious organizations. Eventually he got tired of solving violence with violence, and became a freelancer.

Most of the real jobs he takes now have to do with negotiation rather than Hunting. Sometimes he has the job of tracking Harvestman's ass down from whatever scumhole he's disappeared into. Usually, though, he can be found babysitting Tatiana and exploring the options the Nexus has to offer.

It's peaceful and enjoyable so far.

Strengths and Weaknesses: Enhanced senses in sight and smell. Any other ability, such as reaction time and strength, is baseline human. As such, he can be hurt like anyone else can, injuries take a normal time to recover from, etc.

Type: Gabriel was born to a shapeshifting family (in his world, commonly called weres and separated by clans, most of which are engaged in rivalries and fighting), but he was born 'normal' - unable to shift. His parents sent him to live with relatives in an attempt to give him a chance at a normal life.

He retains the ability to sense certain things; inhuman creatures or weres often have a misshapen shadow in his eyes. He identifies fellow weres fairly easily and has been trained to recognize inhuman elements in others.

Appearance: Gabriel stands at about 6'2", tends to wear weapon-concealing clothes (trenchcoats required), wears his long hair in dreadlocks, and has bright green eyes.

Personality: Gabriel is calm and generally upbeat, good with easy conversation and approaches things with an open mind. He is usually friendly unless dealing with an outright threat, including dealing with those he often Hunts.

PB: Gary Dourdan.