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As soon as Leviathan connected fist with joshua, Kayla shadowstepped down to street level and swung her shovel at the back of Joshua's head. She carried on swinging until she felt contact, the sunk immediately into her own shadow again, not waiting to see what part of him she'd hit, head or impossibly fast fists. She popped up in one of the ong shadows cast by Linda's fireballs and found that she'd only been able to take the handle of the shovel with her. She used it like a golf club, whacking the prone woman in the temple and knocking her out. She ran to rejoin the group. "Where are we going?"

Samuel looked up when he saw Kayla appear. "Erik seems slightly non-responsive right now, but we have got o retreat to the base for now. You know the way, yes? I assume the mission was to retrieve me, not attack the Hunters, and we need to get out of here with everyone. Gurul, my warlock, perceives that we are outmatched at the moment, even with a class seven demon at play on our side. I'd like you to pick up Josh and lead the way back. Hopefully I can cause enough ruckus to make our departure invisible, and then hopefully Leviathan can stall them until we are out of range. Hopefully he will be able to handle escaping on his own" He looked Kayla in the eyes as he called forth balls of fire on all the fingers of his free hand, his other arm occupied with carrying Erik.

Samuel smirked and threw the fireballs out between them and the Hunters.
"Aye. Sounds like a plan. Don't know how much collateral they are willing to incur, but witnesses are generally a no-no. Don't forget Joe, he looks like he's out cold too." He started running to the nearby subway terminal. "Tell me which one to get on, will you?" He asked, turning his head back to Kayla and the prone form of Joe.

It painful like the transformation, being stabbed. The pain was quickly washed over by numb shock as she automatically clamped her had do her side and felt blood trickling through her fingers. For a long second, she couldn't think and just lay on the floor. Then she had a fraction of a second where she thought more clearly than she ever had at any other point in her life, and struggled to her feet. She limped over to Joe, despite Vassily's angry and frightened yelling not to mover or she'd god damned bleed to death, and collapsed on top of him. Then she shadowstepped, carrying them both down the street to the subway stop, where Samuel was with Erik. "Take the uptown...three stops...you can feel the building...I can't get on the subway like this, no way..." Even as she spoke in a hushed tone, people around her were staring. "Go before...some good samaritan calls an ambulance..." She grinned weakly, then sank into her shadow and came up in the shade of a potted palm, within eyeshot of the Hunters. She slumped to the ground, her back against the terra-cotta pot and shut her eyes, hoping she she was interesting enough to merit the Hunter's attention. She released Oscurfillius, no longer able to keep him on this plane.





<...Just go into the trance. It will slow your circulation long enough for it to clot.> She began to measure her breathing, and felt her heart race a little more slowly. She was getting dizzy though, and opened her eyes, casting about for something to focus on. She decided on an ice machine, it's identity spelled out in large red letters in the alley next to a ramshackle restaurant. Ice...that reminded her of something. She wondered idly if it was an important something.

"I guess your little episode was good for something, Alan," the swordsman commented as he saw Kayla emerging.

"What do you want, Sam?" Alan asked exasperatedly. He turned to where the swordsman was looking, and an expression of pained horror came over his face. "All right. Sam, you take Linda. Josh, Paul, help me get her up and stop the bleeding. We need to get her out of the open before the Shadowmen get any ideas. If we're lucky, they'll be focused on chasing Legion's kiddos."

"It's okay, we can take care of that soon. For now, we just need to get her away from the snipers," Alan replied. He slung her other arm over his shoulders and they began to carry her. "Our nearest safehouse is a little under half a block away. I'm gonna obfuscate us as best as I can under the circumstances..." Everything around them became a little hazy and blurry, difficult to look at. They laboriously began making their way to the safehouse."

Kayla felt herself lift, and made a rather depressing attempt to help in the walking proces. Her mind was still working though, and she had to figure something out before she woke up to the third degree at Hunters HQ.



His words fell on deaf ears, though, as Kayla had let herself slip into the trance, and was currently in Hell, albiet at a different gate.

This gate was extremely unimpressive, looking like an extremely rusted garden gate, and utterly failing to impress. She opened it and limped inside, her soul suffering from her body's injuries. "Silk! I need to speak to Silk!" She then sat down on the ground and took off her shoes, then her socks. She was slipping her new naked feet back into her shoes when what appeared to be a characaturist's tasteless representation of a tiny jewish man with large quantities of green nose hair.
"What?" His voice was harsh and ironically waspish.
"Silk, I need your help. I've heard about you from Puglith, apparently you were close at one point. Anyway, I'm in rather a lot of trouble right now, and I need you. I brought you socks." she held them out, sweaty and stinking. Silk surveyed them once before finding them acceptable and snatching them from her hands.
"What is it the girl needs done?" Kayla smiled and tried to get up, only to find that she couldn't.
"Ah. Less time than I'd hoped. I'm a demon channeler, and I'm in a lot of s**t right now with warlock hunters."
"Well you've wasted your socks then, because I'm of no use to anybody. All I do is send messages, one way, once only then back to Hell. I'll have warmer feet though..." Kayla just patted him on the shoulder and happily passed out. She woke up back on earth, wherever the Hunters had taken her with bothe her socks missing.

"Everything ready?" Josh asked. He was sitting in front of some sort of convoluted-looking machine.

"Ready," answered Sam, in front of another machine, connected by sets of cables to the first, and by another set of wires to output areas on Kayla and Alan's necks, shoulders, and foreheads.

Kayla and Alan were both chained to a wall and gagged with duct tape. Alan looked peaceful; Kayla... did not. Her shirt had been torn off in the space around the stab wound, which had been (somewhat messily) dressed.

"Go," Josh said. A small pulse from Sam's hand indicated use of magic, and Kayla felt suddenly empty, as though some part of her were missing.

Sam promptly and painfully ripped the duct tape from each of their mouths.

"Damn it, man, if you keep doing that I'm never going to be able to grow a mustache," Alan complained. Josh ignored him as a ripple of air from his hand unlocked all of the shackles.

"You are now incapable of using magic, at least for some time, and are deprived of any arcane influences upon you," Josh informed her. "Make yourself at home... as much as you can in this room, anyway." She was promptly stuck inside with Alan as the two other Hunters left through a wooden door, which was locked behind her. The machinery was gone when she looked towards it again; the same went for the chains. The room, previously empty, now had a TV, a computer, two beds, a couch, a chair, and... well, that was about it.

"Sorry about that stab wound," Alan muttered awkwardly, pulling a first aid kit from his shadow. "I'm going to get it cleaned and dressed properly now..."

Linda, outside, had awakened, sleepily sat around, and gone back to sleep by this point.