"Sure," said Robyn. "The kids are about two intersections to the northeast. You'll know where they are."

Another portal opened under Liam's feet. He dropped onto the ground in the suburbs, about ten paces from a wrecked Redwatch SUV. The vehicle had collided with a telephone pole. Judging from the hole in the windshield and the ghoul driver's exploded head, the collision was the result of a sniper attack. Two other ghouls lay on the pavement next to the vehicle. One barely made it out of his door. The other had managed to take cover behind the van and managed to get a few shots off before being put down. No evidence of any vampires on the patrol.

The trunk had been opened and ransacked after the fact, and the dead ghouls appeared to have been relieved of their weapons.

Every garage on the street had been tagged by vandals. Several colourful expletives disparaging the Tremere and heralding the end of the fugue adorned the garages, and there were even a few ambitious yet crude drawings of Noonian (evidenced by arrows with his name pointing to them) in several obscene and embarrassing acts. Every one was tagged with the stylized sunrise symbol of the Dawn Chorus. The smell of fresh paint would make the kids easy to track.

"Mik."

Liam stepped away from the crash with a fair degree of confidence about who had been behind the scope. He glanced at his watch as he started walking towards the northeast. Neither Mickey nor Tyr would be reachable yet, but there was a fair chance Elijah would be. It had certainly been long enough since he'd witnessed the blast at the Alhambra for the fliers to make it safely to ground.

Liam called the gangrel.

Cognizant of his surroundings, and just who he was about to wander across, he shifted out of his crinos form and pulled his arachnid limbs in tight against his back. From a distance at least he didn't look quite so monstrous.

"Liam," said Elijah on the other line. "Looks like you made it out alive."

"Yeah. We got the jump on a fair few Tremere, and mopped up most of the Redwatch reinforcements. A couple of cars turned back for the Alhambra but hopefully you felt the difference on the other end."

"I saw the charges go off. I presume that means success?"

"Took out their breeding pen," said Elijah. "And bumped off what we can only assume was the last of the original Redwatch Gangrel. Along with whatever poor sons of bitches they sent up there to chase us off. There might be a few stragglers left but they know we're out there pickin' em off. The skies are ours."

“Well that’s good news. Did all your boys make it back?”

"We took a couple losses," he said. "And a few injuries. Less than expected, though. We caught them by surprise, but they're still Gangrel. They fought back."

"That's the truth." Liam had been on the receiving end of those claws more than once.

"So now that the skies are yours, what do you plan to do? Hang around to pick off the stragglers, or head back for Montreal?"

"I promised I'd get you out of the cordon when you were ready, and I stand by it."

"Tide's changed since we started the plan," said Elijah. "It's not my call, but I want to stick around. Seems like a bad idea to cede control of the air - at least 'til the government moves in. If you can get assurances that we'll be allowed to go when the Tremere are done, it'll go a long way to keeping us here."

"Speak to Flores. See what he says. For what its worth, I'll get you out of here one way or another but I'll put in a good word with the proper channels first."

"I'm off to the suburbs to make sure things stay quiet, but I'll be in touch."

"Yeah, we'll see you soon," said Elijah.

The crew wasn't difficult to spot. Ted was outside keeping a lookout, while Maggie was busy vandalizing the latest garage. She stepped back as it clattered open, and made way for a vehicle full of Mooks to back down into the road. The occupants of the car gave no attention to Liam, and headed toward the city limits at a brisk speed. The roads were otherwise empty.

Ted set the butt of his rifle on the ground as Liam approached. "Glad you could make it," he said casually. "Everything go smoothly on your end?"

Liam shrugged. "Could have gone smoother," he admitted. "But we accomplished what we wanted to."

More or less.

"All good here? I saw the patrol car."

"Yeah, we heard the shots, and it was like that when we got there," said Ted. "We stripped 'em for weapons and ammo. Figured the vehicle would only be a liability. Jack was a little disappointed to find out we're working with a safety net but I think I talked some sense into 'im."

“Jack isn’t working with a safety net. I’m working with a safety net. Moira made it quite clear what she would do to me if anything happened to one of her kids.”

Liam smirked.

“I can make myself scarce though, if they’d feel better.”

Ted shook his head. "This is their first mission, and they're still kids," he said. "Our priority here is rescuing as many civvies as we can get away with safely, not dancing around their pride." He looked around. "Buuuut, it's pretty dead around here. Maybe you can watch from a distance?"

"It's like I'm not even here," Liam said, with a nod. He stepped off the road and took to the air - perhaps the only flier left in the city tonight after the events at the Alhambra now that the Gangrel had gone to ground. From up here he had an unobstructed view of the suburb below and could ride the thermals until close to morning if need be.

Given the early events of the evening, Liam was grateful for a little dullness. And dull it was. The Dawn Chorus made their way through the suburbs methodically, without any further intervention from the Redwatch. If the Camarilla was aware of the missing patrol, they sent no one out to check on them. After all, they had much bigger fires to put out. The group worked through the night, until the coming dawn forced their Kindred protection to retreat.

The party reassembled in the safety of the Village, celebrating with a well-earned feast as the artificial sun began to shine. The festivities had barely kicked off when Liam's government-issued satphone buzzed. It was Cal.

"Including the people you trucked in from the ruins, the total headcount for the evening is 327 souls safely extracted," he said without so much as a hello. "How's it feel?"

"Kind of feels like we delivered eight too few," Liam admitted. Those eight body bags lay large in his thoughts as the dawn crested over Nowhere. Carol's in particular.

"They sent them down to get slaughtered. I don't know what to do with that. How do you protect someone from the gun in their own hands, much less a grenade? I mean I tried, but..."

"How are the ones that were medivacked out?"

"And the two Tremere wizards we bagged, did you and Mickey wake them back up?"

Cal sighed. "Look, I've been to a lot of places I shouldn't have been, and I've seen a lot of monsters put a lot of innocent people through a meat grinder in a lot of horrible ways. Some whip up clueless farmers with a cocktail of religion and lies and strap a bomb to their chest. Some pump kids full of drugs and stick assault rifles in their hands. You save the ones you can. The ones you can't - or that you need to kill to survive - well, you gotta do what you gotta do to keep going. If you want to blame someone for it, blame the people who put the grenades in their hands."

"That's not me giving you a pep talk. That's me telling what you need to do to stay alive. Because if you get wrapped up in guilt over the ones you couldn't save, it'll destroy you. I've seen it happen too many times. I don't know much about you guys, but from what I've seen you can take a shotgun to the face, but your hearts and minds are just as fragile as ours. And when one of you loses your grip... man, does it ever go bad. How many people are you gonna save, then? Or are they the ones that'll need saving?"

"Plenty of people are in a lot less danger than they were this morning. Most are gonna take a long time to recover, but that's not on you. You and yours scored a major victory today. Savour it. That's an order."

Liam smiled, though Cal wasn't there to see it. "Alright," he said sheepishly. "You got me. I'll... go and have a beer with the troops, or something."

"It took a lot to pull off tonight's caper. I'm not going to lie, I haven't looked too far ahead yet but I suppose that's tomorrow's problem."

Liam cast a glance over his shoulder at the gathering around the camp fire.

"There is one other thing I wanted to mention though, Cal. I spoke with Elijah. I was thinking the Gangrel might want out now that the aerie has been dealt with, but he tells me with the way the ground has shifted they'd be inclined to see the job through. It'd go a long way to settling their concerns if they had some assurance they'll be allowed to leave when the pyramid falls though."

"You know that's not in my power to grant," said Cal. "But I'll pass it up the chain. That said, I don't think they'll be looking to pick a fight with the people that helped them take back the city. At any rate, you and I both know you don't need our blessing or our help to move people in and out of town."

"Looking forward, ehh," he muttered some discomfort. "The next move is theirs. Without knowing these guys, I can only guess at what it might be. But it's probably going to be desperate. Maybe stupid. They're already backed into a corner, and you just took a big swipe at them. If I had to put money on it, I'd say they're gonna make a break for it. They're gonna try to get their brass out at the very least."

"Desperate people make mistakes. I suppose right now, that's all we can hope for. Anyway, its getting late. Give my thanks to Mickey. Couldn't have done it without him tonight."

"I'll pass it along," said Cal. "I hear he's real happy with how things went tonight, too. We'll be in touch."

The party was well-earned, but the whole village was exhausted. It would wind down quickly. If he wanted to discuss pressing matters with anyone, he'd need to do so promptly.

True to his word, Liam stayed long enough for a beer and a chance to listen to the stories of the returning ‘heroes’ of the Dawn Chorus. About his own night he spoke little, in part because he didn’t want to detract from their well earned success, and in equal part because the smell of white phosphorus and seared flesh was still fresh in his memory.

As the sun rose higher and the festivities began to wind down, Liam gratefully took his leave and hunkered down below ground with Caleb pressed against his feet.

[5 XP for the scene]