A nice spot to watch anything

Etrius' eyes twitched slightly. A son of one of the big three, awesome, that meant that he would probably have some kind of power pertaining to summoning undead minions which were not fun to kill. Dang, Lotus would have been a good guy to have here. Sons of the big three nowadays also tended to have inflated egos and would not take to being arrested very well.

"We're going to have a fight on our hand aren't we? Do you guys have a shotgun? My rifle isn't very well suited to fighting undead."

He worked the bolt to pop out the capsule and emphasize it's single action nature.

"We won't have a fight unless we find him," Danni said turning on her hip so she could see Etrius better.
"Unless he gets sloppy I doubt we even stand a chance of finding him."
She kneaded her forehead and turned back around. Her job was truly frustrating on so many levels, being a foreigner made it much more difficult. "As for a gun you would have to get a special one at my office."

Etrius shrugged. He put the cartridge back on his belt and slung the rifle back over his shoulder, dang, it was getting interesting too, oh well, at least they weren't fighting anything.

"I find that mortal metal still works fine against monsters as long as you put enough kinetic energy into it."

He said off handedly, staring out the window as the SUV continued moving through the streets, the streets were cleared beforehand by some of the police. It was strange, but not unexpected, the paper trail was probably hell though, he wondered how everyone dealt with it. He smirked slightly, how would all the guys at the department react to him, well, the guys who had worked with him.

"You know, it's kind of a shame we can't simply round up a few ghosts and ask for directions. There was probably someone who saw a son of hades walking by."

Danni let out a tired chuckle, "Obviously you are not up to date on all of the FBI's new toys."
The section of FBI Danni worked for had been developing Celestial Bronze weapons and they were quite fun to play with on Danni's day off.
"As for the ghosts, they don't tend to linger long after they die because they walk off to the under worlds."
She drummed her fingers on the car handle.

"Hn"

He grunted as the car continued on. Hmm, getting closer to the FBI HQ. Maybe he could drop in on the guys at the department, it would be a nice surprise and all.

"Well, that's a real shame. At least a hint of where the guy is would be nice. Do you guys have any pattern on his victims so far? Usually a serial killer has a pattern that they follow."

He played with one of the cartridges to the rifle. The shiny cylindrical pill shaped thing flipped over and over between his fingers before he suddenly snapped it still. He held it straight up and his smirk widened a bit. Case-less layered Tungsten Carbide(weight)/Celestial Bronze(monsters) composite darts were still in development by Colossus, mainly working out the manufacturing kinks. The rest of the world was more focusing on pumping out more Celestial bronze bullets to chamber with regular weapons.

Unfortunately, right now all Etrius had was caseless depleted uranium kinetic penetrators. Oh well, it was meant to kill demi-gods and regular humans, not monsters anyway.

"Anyway, I'd like to see these new toys. Seems a shame we wouldn't get to play with them."

"No luck with that yet, he does though leave the mark of Hades burnt into the back of the victim's neck," Danni rubbed the back of her neck thinking about the sensation having skin fried. She smiled slightly at the playing with toys comment.
"You may be able to if you don't wander. The last guy who I brought wandered got arrested and punched in the face." Danni answered chewing on her thumb nail. At Etrius' comment Danni decided she like him as a person. Being cute didn't put a damper on their relationship.

Etrius let out a small shudder, almost dropping the cartridge that he was holding, his smirk dropping as he thought back on one of his more unpleasant memories.

"Yeah, I'll try to remember that. We worked with the CIA demi-ops group once. They told us not to wander but Sage decided to hit on one of the female field operatives. She . . . ah . . . kicked him in a . . . place, hard enough to put him in the hospital. I will never forget those screams for as long as I live."

Etrius said, as he tried to think of happier thoughts. Like catching serial killers, yeah, that was much more fun then watching your friend get almost sterilized by sheer blunt force trauma. Actually, he wondered what Loyd possibly did to help Sage recover from that. Those painkillers were probably elephant grade or something.

"CIA people aren't very nice," Danni agreed as the car pulled up to a sleek looking building. She got out and tucked her gun into her belt and got the door for Etrius. Danni's new partner had thought it would be funny to child lock the door. Ron had never fooled around like that but Danni welcomed the change.
"At least FBI people have a sense of humor... most of the time."

Etrius stepped out of the car door, nodding in thanks to Danni and whistled as he looked at the building. The tall structure simply screamed 'government installation' but at the same time had an air of awesomeness and homeliness about it. In fact, there was even a group of employees outside messing around with their smart phones. It was the perfect way to hide a top secret organization, by making it look so 'un-top secret' that nobody really bothered. Clever.

"Yeah, I know. I wonder if any of the guys from the department will recognize me. Hmm."

He slotted the cartridge back into his utility belt and began walking towards the building. He checked that his weapon was on safety and fumbled about in the belt's admin pouch before he pulled out an armband with a badge attached to it. The badge simply stated that he was allowed to carry weapons inside government facilities. It was also an access key to access anything at his level of clearance or lower, which wasn't much but hey, it was a sweet deal already.

"Well, lets go do this. Or . . . whatever we need to do."

Danni chuckled lightly at the expression on Etrius face, "Welcome to KerrenTaff Inventive Industries."
She walked in and pulled out her wallet and a ID card.
Entered and clocked in and walked down to her office. There was a picture with Herself, Ron, her dad, and Ron's wife. She touched it lightly with her finger as she sat down in her chair. She played her messages and deleted a few before pulling out a file.

Etrius set himself in a chair across the desk from Danni, a contented look on his face. The look morphed into an intrigued smirk as he looked over at the young agent. He noticed the picture and reached into the oddly shaped pouches in his utility belt and yanked out a stainless steel bottle of some strange drink. James said he had gotten it in southeast Asia somewhere, though, Loyd said it was European, either way, it tasted good and Etrius didn't care.

"So . . ." He said, uncapping the bottle and gesturing with it at the picture. "friends of yours or family?"

He then leaned back and took a long drink. The cool tangy sweet taste reinvigorated him, either that or the caffeine, either one.

"Both," Danni answered opening the file. "Dad is behind me. The other couple is Ron and Hellen. They were married up until Ron dying a week ago. Ron was my partner."
She pulled out a few pieces of paper and spread them out in front o her. They were the murdered victims. She read through them again briefly before opening another file.
"This puzzle is almost as difficult as dealing with the Winged Thief."
Winged Thief was a Manhattan's most notorious thief and she had evaded capture for the last five or six years.

Etrius suddenly began choking and coughing, some of the drink had managed to slip into his windpipe. He finished spluttering and wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

"Winged thief? The chick that Sage ran into in a dark alley last Christmas and evaded ten squad cars, twenty police and eight SWAT officers with?"

He hadn't actually been there, but he'd gotten an after action report from Anne about a week later. It had been logged under the deployment where Sage wiped out a small gang of cyclopses. Hmm, interesting, this merited further meddling with.

Danni watched him coolly, "Yes. She is wanted in so many different states right now, it is ridiculous. Our department finally got a hold of the case, my boss refused to believe it was a demi-god causing all of this ruckus. "
She shook her head, and chuckled, "She stole the first lady's diamonds a few weeks ago and we still haven't picked up anything."
She spun her chair around and pulled a water bottle out of the fridge she cracked it open and took a sip.

According to sage, the girl had been rather distressed when she had seen his actual wings for some reason. Maybe it was a combination of watching him drop a 30+story dropkick and then immediately creepily tease her with language that sat on the boarder between teasing, flirting and vocal rape. Hmm.

Etrius took another sip from his bottle.

"Well, she doesn't actually have wings and without actually using a power it's not as easy to prove she's a demi-god. Sage would better fit the name but he's already got 'angel' as his handle. I could help argue your case."

Etrius pulled a smart phone from his pocket and began scrolling through names. He tapped the screen twice, entered a password and held it up for her to see. A picture of Zen White popped up along with alias, nickname, hair color, eye color, height, distinguishing markings and pretty much everything except her current location, favorite foods and cycle. Not even Kronos would be crazy enough to try and find that out.

"See? Pretty nifty huh?"

"That isn't the issue though, we search and search for evidencing linking her to the crime and we can't find it. I swear she is like a mad genius. She doesn't even bother hiding herself. She just appears out of no were and vanishes without a trace. She gets the named 'Winged' as you so kindly pointed out from the tattoo on her back. But she is not the problem at the moment."
Danni massaged her scalp while looking at the murder victims, chewing her bottom lip, "Come on, what is the connection? It is probably staring us in the face."

Etrius took another sip.

"Well, the lady, her face did not show a scream of pain like she should have, considering that she was probably killed by a hemotoxin. She was screaming in fright and shock."

Etrius shrugged again and took yet another sip. The liquid was cold and the taste was rather soothing.

"Considering that the guy is probably a son of Hades, he might be collecting souls or something. Maybe the people he killed matched a certain criteria or something that made them perfect for some purpose."

*sip*

"either that or he could be completely mad"

"I am betting on completely mad," Danni said. "These have been so bizarre. The first one had a severed head, the next had her limbs removed, the last one was hung upside down by her ankles and skinned, now this."
She layed a few papers in front of him for each girl. "Every single build is about same, fairly muscular with few scars."

Etrius took another sip.

"So . . . where has he struck so far? Is it just New York or has he gone to other cities, maybe towns or something. Any patterns? Race, religion, favorite song, address, telephone number, anything."

*sip*

Etrius shook the bottle. Half full, great, he would have to go back to camp to get a refill and that was probably not for a while. Maybe he could find it from one of the local shops or something . . . Or just steal some from jim, hmm, viable plan. He capped it and put it back into the pouch on his utility belt.

"If he's local, we could do a full sweep. Slow and steady, cordon off the area and tighten the noose. It would be gradual, find the next spot he's most likely to hit and flood the area with under cover agents. We'll get something, even if it's another body."

[SBA testing and semester finals got me freakin out yo, i'll try to post a bit more kay?]

"Patterns..." She mumbled.
Danni stood thinking rapidly, opening a desk drawer she pulled out a dry erase marker and dragged Etrius out of his chair by his wrist. She pulled out a map that had been laminated.
"Tell me the coordinates of the girl's bodies," She told him. She pulled off the lid and began labeling places were they had found the bodies. When they were done she stepped back thinking. Danni didn't have a photographic memory and she wishing for one now. She looked over Etrius' shoulder at the paper. Each girl was missing a parent.
"Sweet Isis," She said. "These girls were demigods. Etrius, you are brilliant. So brilliant I may have to kiss you."
Danni spun back to the map, running her hand through her brown hair after pulling her hair out of her rubber band.
Then it clicked, "It's a summoning circle." She answered her own question.

"Hmm, I would take you up on your offer, but it looks like the circle is almost complete. That guy is three kills away from completing that thing."

Etrius stared at the map for a second. Dang, it seems like he was right all along, he would need to do some fighting.

"Colossus has an office about eight and a half blocks up spin, I can put two plain clothes squads on the ground in about thirty minutes and they have a helicopter too, there's our air support."

He rubbed at the armband with the badge on it. His level of clearence didn't include any weapons lockers. He could carry his own weapons but he couldn't carry out any of the federal stock. All he had was a K-bar, his rifle and a rather sturdy piano keyboard, not nearly enough to go up against a Demi-god, especially a son of Hades.

"From what I know about big threes, those guys do not take well to being arrested. A son of Hades is going to have undead at his command so we need shotguns or something full auto in case he has skeletons or zombies, also melee weapon if he summons ghosts."

He sighed. He turned toward Danni and smiled a bit.

"You think you mind showing me these new toys of yours?"

Danni blushed slightly at his response but said nothing about it.
"We can't let this get to big," Danni said thinking. She opened the door starting down the hall. "If he knew we were onto him, he may start killing mortals at random. We need that circle stable to contain what ever he is summoning. But we could do with-"
Danni's cell phone rang abruptly. She answered it and her face paled. She just answered with a few noises of agreement. Then she hung up, "Another body was discovered. She was 12."
At that Danni picked up her pace. She reached weapons storage and unlocked it with the keys on her belt.
"Help yourself," She answered, pulling out several new magazines. "The bullets are celestial bronze. I perfected them. So they are stable. Also, do you mind if we take my car?"
At her car she meant her Italiano sports car she had brought all the way from Italy. She started towards the garage after they had gathered their weapons. He car was sleek and black. Danni unlocked the door and got in.

Etrius arrived at the weapons storage locker. There were a lot of weapons in there and there seemed to be a fire in his eyes as he took in all the varieties of ways to make things dead. He grabbed a shotgun and a pistol as well as several shells, two magazines and a leg holster for the pistol. He pulled out a one point bungee sling and attached the shotgun to it before strapping the holster to his leg.
He followed her most of the way to the car. He broke off for about four minutes to pick the lock to and steal a drink from Jim's office, leaving an IOU.

"I'll take shotgun seeing as I'm holding a shotgun."

He said, sliding into the passenger side seat. He closed the door and as they sped off down the road, he made a phone call.

*ring ring click*

"yeeellllo, Annie here, whatcha want?"

"Yo, Annie, Etrius, I need you to identify a summoning circle for me. Can you do that?"

"Okay, should be no problem. You have a picture?"

Etrius sent the picture and two seconds later, there was the distinct sound of someone spitting coffee all over a computer monitor. A sound of frying hardware followed.

"Dang, I liked that keyboard. Anyway. Stop that circle from being completed. I've redirected CFNS Albatross from her current objective to providing any support if at all possible. Knight and Knightstalk are also en-route to the Hudson Bay."

"That bad huh?"

"You don't want to know."

"Yeah, later"

*click*

He put the phone back into his pocket. And looked over at Danni before fixing his eyes on the road, scanning for anything suspicious.

"So . . . Yeah, apparently this thing is bad enough to warrant sending an aircraft carrier and two corvettes after it. Any Ideas?"

Danni spluttered at the term Corvette.
"This is no corvette, this is a Pagani. I got her on my last mission in Italy." She tapped the dash board lightly. She got that he was addressing something entirely different but she didn't particularly understand what. The car doors opened up instead of out. Danni waited for Etrius to get in, starting the vehicle. The engine made a slight purring noise. Quitely they pulled away from the curb.
"I think we should be able to handle a son of Hades pretty well. My best friend when I first met her didn't have a good hand on her powers yet. If this guy's powers are any thing like my friend's or my own, I think we pretty much have him covered." Danni's hands tightened on the steering wheel as her phone went off again. She answered it, "Hello?"
She asked and her face paled, after a few seconds she hung up.
"They have a hostage situation in the park," Danni elaborated. T

Etrius looked at her.

"There's two types of corvette: the sports car, and the two 1.5 thousand ton warships on their way here right now."

He blanched when she mentioned the hostage situation. He hated hostage situations, they were always James' thing, though, his way of solving the problem was usually with either with a celestial bronze arrow or a 12.7mm bullet to the face. Etrius simply did not have the seemingly laser guided high precision aim that James had.

He looked at the picture on his phone and blanched again. The park was only about a block from the location of the nearest site. The guy was getting cocky since the circle was almost nearing completion and obviously, self preservation was not very high on his agenda.

"We need to cordon off the area. The park is only a block away from the next checkpoint so we need to cordon off those two zones, that guy is too dangerous to be left alive."

He loaded several celestial bronze shotgun shells into his weapon and pushed the pump forward.