Amanda walked towards the dresser, where her cross and pistol laid just before the mirror. The sun was just starting to set, sending red rays in to the room through the half open blinds and she picked up the pistol and tugged in to the back of her jeans.

"Hey, babe," said Marco, appearing behind her, "let me." He picked up the small gold cross by the chain and fastened it around her neck, which he then kissed and started to nibble on, his teeth lightly pinching her skin.

"Forget it, Marco," she said, shoving back with her shoulders and then turning to face him. "It was a one time deal. We drank, we danced, we fucked. Not much more to it than that."

"You're cold," said Marco, flushing at the shot to his pride. He was usually the one who walked away without any regard for his latest conquest. Amanda snorted.

"The end of the day, you're just another man. You got your end away with the hottest bitch this side of the state line, be grateful you're getting' to say goodbye."

"Where you goin', anyway?" asked Marco. "Packin' some serious heat."

"That's just a pop gun, and I didn't say it was your business. You had me for an afternoon, get over it." She pulled her blouse over her shoulders where it fell lightly over the top of her t-shirt, and she picked up her coat. "And you might want to learn some new moves. I'm no small town skirt." Then she walked out of the door, and down the three steps of the motel porch to where her jeep was waiting.

She always had sex before a mission, because it might have been the last time she was able to do that, and she'd chosen Marco because he'd looked good. Looks were deceptive because for all Marco's attractiveness, he was a lousy lay with a small cock. It was a good thing she knew what she was doing otherwise she'd have gotten nothing from it. She'd never faked it before, because she'd never had to, but she made a mental note that if she got through the next gig, she was going to do a woman before the mission and she could do the work.

"Team X, call in," she said as she picked up the CB handset in the vehicle and contacted the rest of the team.

"Team's ready, boss," said Kurt Wagner, her number two, his German accent making him unmistakable for anyone else on the squad. "We're all waitin' for you. You taken care of business?" The team knew exactly what she did before a mission.

"Yeah," she answered. There was a pause of a moment, because she knew they wanted the answer to the question they hadn't yet asked her. It was a case of who flinched first, but she didn't have time to play the game as the clock was ticking. "Five inches. I owe you ten bucks." Kurt laughed, because he'd called it right and it galled Amanda.

"How about next time you do me?"

"Kurt, you're never gonna have that kind of money on me," she replied and she could hear the whoops of Marko, Cassidy and Barton. She could just imagine the pale skinned German turning a deep crimson. Score was settled. "Get the team ready, we strike hard and fast. Braces on. I'll be with you in ten. Harte out."

She released the button and climbed in to her jeep, and turned the key and after a few moments she started the engine. She was going to have to get the thing seen to if and when she got through this. It had served it's purpose for a long time and it was almost like an old friend. The amount of missions it had seen was staggering and the speed was phenomenal across the kind of terrain they were used to. However the only thing required tonight was to get her from A to B.

The team were meeting to hit the Orchard as they'd termed it. It was a few miles outside of town, which was unusual but that was history for you. Kanu, the new kingpin was waiting for the new arrivals there and it was the job of Team X to make sure the new arrivals never made it past the gates. She hated the dusk missions, as it was too close to night but it was the only way to make sure they got them all. The jeep sped from the lot, as she put her mirrored shades on. The sun may have been setting but there was one hell of a glow in the sky and it was almost blinding.

A blood red sky.

Never a good sign if you believed what the training said, but then again Team X were the best. The Umbra weren't chosen from a hat and Team X had the reputation and honour of being the best in the field. They had the longest success rating of all the Umbra teams and that was enough. You failed once and the game was over. It had been a long time since the original Team X had failed.

Logan, Nord, Creed, Fox, Wraith, Todd.

Names of legend, names whispered in glorified tones, but legends only became legends after the fact. There were no living legends, only egotists. Team X were three missions away from the original record set by their predecessors but they weren't in this for the record. They were in it because it was what they had trained to do, what they had been chosen for, what they had been given to do by the voice of God.

She traced the Latin on the back of the cross, feeling the small indentures on the gold and thinking that those were the words she would like to see on her marker. People like her didn't get tombs, because they would never find the bodies. When she was gone, all she would be remembered by was a marker on a wall in the depths of the Vatican and by the last person she screwed. That was enough for her and soon she was with her team, who were waiting on the top of the hill.

"Welcome back, Mandy" said Cain Marko as he hefted his crossbow across his large shoulders. The man was built to be the size of any of the professional wrestlers on the television but whereas they had their actions choreographed, Marko wasn't one for following the lead in a fight. Amanda was cool with that because he'd saved their asses many a time because of it.

"We got any movement yet?" Amanda said as she checked her weapon. Maybe it was the whiskey from earlier but it felt odd in her hand.

"Nope," said Marko as she slipped the pistol back in her pants. "Still, soon as the sun's gone, we'll know."

"Fine," she said. "What about Jeannie?"

"She's done with the religion stuff," said Marko. "We're blessed and the mission prayed for, but I still ain't sure about women priests and shit."

"Get with the century, Cain," said Amanda. "Otherwise after they get rid of the women, they'll be going after the fags next."

"Fuck you," said Cain. Amanda smiled. She knew that Cain and team explosives expert Tom Cassidy had been butt fucking each other for months. They'd been friends for longer except on one mission they'd been arrested and thrown in to jail for thirty days. Tom had been beaten on straight away because of his lesser size and Cain had stepped in and told the yokels he was his bitch and they'd to leave him alone. They'd challenged him to prove it and because there were too many to fight at once, Tom had dropped his pants and bent over. It turned out they enjoyed it and continued doing it.

That left Clint Barton, who was the marksman of the group. He was a loner, kept himself to himself and never mentioned a personal life. He drank and played cards, maintaining that he didn't want relationships. Amanda didn't care what he got up to, as long as he kept his aim and he was as good as they came. He was watching the small building at the edge of the clearing at the foot of the hill.

"Someone's moving in there," he said to Wagner who gestured to Harte and Marko.

"Got something?" she asked.

"Yeah," said Kurt. "Movement. How many did intel say we had?"

"Reports say there's fifteen," said the Reverend Jean Grey, checking her notes. "Setting up a small army."

"Shit," said Marko. "How the hell did this loser get to be top dog?"

"We killed his boss, remember," said Barton. "A bullet right through the heart and out the back of his chest."

"Okay," said Harte, ending the discussion and her people gave her the undivided attention she commanded. "The sun's almost down, and they're moving in there. Brace." She accepted the metal hoop from Wagner and locked it around her neck, then she readied her pistol, and Wagner gave her the second. "Let's go kill the fuckers. Tom, light the fires."

The building at the bottom of the hill exploded in a flash of light and fire as the four members of Team X headed down to the bottom of the hill, where figures were starting to stir, burning like torches and providing Team X with targets that even a blind man could have found and shots rang out from four weapons as Harte, Wagner and Barton fired their guns and took down four enemies, striking hard and true. Barton's shots pierced the hearts of his targets, while the others struck at heads and legs to incapacitate their victims. Marko followed their leads by firing bolts in to their hearts and ensuring they were dead.

HSSK breathed one of the targets as they pounced forward, tackling Wagner, who kicked back with an aerobatic manoeuvre but it wasn't enough as the creature grappled with him, teeth biting down on the neck, but hitting the brace. It was that moment of shock that the creature had missed the target that they relied on to punch in to the soft and fleshy body to crush the heart of the vampire.

Only with it's heart destroyed could they truly die. Fire would slow them down, but not kill. The only other ways were through the light of the sun itself or by the various mystical wards created to defend against the creatures of an ancient evil.

"Cutting it fine, Kurt," said Amanda as she pulled her silver dagger from her coat and went on the attack up close and personal. "Your getting past it, old man."

"I'll remind you of your first time and how you pissed your panties laster. How many you made?" he asked. "I think we've gotten ten."

"Eleven," she replied, glad that Kurt made the same call she'd made, as she withdrew her dagger back from the vampire's body and removing the heart from it, squeezing it between her fingers. "Four left and the sun's almost gone." There was a shot behind her and again and two more fell to the floor, their heart's shredded by the pinpoint accuracy of Clint Barton. They'd just popped up from the ground catching her and Wagner off guard.

"Score two more for Hawkeye," said Cain as he looked about. Something wasn't right here, because the attack had stopped due to a lack of targets "Thirteen?" He looked at Amanda who was scouring the battlefield. No movement of any kind

"Shit. There's two..." Another shot rang out and Cain staggered and looked down at his chest where a dirty red stain appeared and he fell to the floor and then there was a shrill cry of horror from the top of the hill and Amanda and Kurt looked at each other in a disbelieving horror and asecond cry shook them back to their senses.

"JEAN!" they cried in shock and started to run when there was a large explosion at the top of the hill. By the time they got there, Tom had managed to kill the two vampires, but Barton was lying on the floor, his neck brace torn off and his throat torn out. Tom was injured badly. Wagner shook his head after he checked on Clint.

"Bastard used Jean as a shield. Nothing I could do and one of 'em jumped me" said Tom. "Fed the fucker a grenade." Then he gaver a cough before closing his eyes and Amanda could see teeth marks in his neck. They'd let him live and the curse had been passed to him. They had to kill him before he turned, but they had to find Jean - dead or alive. Kanu couldn't have gotten far and the two of them headed away from the Orchard, spreading out and keeping their eyes open for a body. Then there was a muffled cry and they met up again further down the road where the base camp had been.

Jean was on the floor, the remains of her pants shredded and strewn about in her immediate area. The figure on top of her was obviously enjoying what he was doing, and the two remaining members of Team X, realised that if the vampire impregnated her, then there would be chaos within the system. A vampire born of a woman would have unspeakable powers before and after the birth and as Grey was a Catholic she would not be able to abort. Maybe Cain had been right about women priests after all.

"Get off her!" said Wagner, who considered Jean as a little sister because of her purity and innocence and raced to her aid, but Kanu threw him back easily ands he lay in a heap on the floor, unmoving and went down on Jean once more.. Kanu was a minor player but still quite powerful, and if he fathered a Tainted One, he would be assured a place in history. Amanda fired her weapons, only to find her bullets were empty.

"What the fuck?" she said. No wonder they'd felt wrong.

"Surprise," said Kanu as he turned to face her, leaving Jean sobbing on the floor a small stain of blood on her thigh and he licked his lips, tasting the mixture of blood and the naturally produced lubricant. "Marco works for me. Well, worked. Immortality is a very fine temptation but he wasn't worthy of it. However he tasted fine to me, if perhaps a little salty. Was he salty to you too?"

"Bastard," she said, wondering what Marco had done to her gun, but Kanu had her in his gaze and even if she had a weapon she was going nowhere and he was at his mercy.

"So much for the fabled Team X," said Kanu. "half dead, your spiritual guide... defrocked and you weaponless. Whatever will you do? Other than die, because you're not worthy of being turned?" He beckoned to her and Amanda walked over to him, her feet rebelling against her mind. She stood before him and a bead of sweat came through on Amanda's forehead.

"Exaudi Domine vocem meam qua clamavi miserere mei et exaudi me," said Jean, beneath them, and somehow managed to sit up, pulling a stake from the back of her pants and in an adrenaline frenzy she thrust the stake through the heart of Kanu, who felt it torn apart inside him and fell to the floor, where his body seemed to be swallowed by the Earth itself, as it had done to all the fallen creatures of darkness. Wagner looked up, shaking his head and blinking.

"Did we win?"

"Not really," said Harte, as she rubbed her forehead. Her weakness had been used against her and she didn't like that. She'd almost been killed because of her fetish, her team had been halved, and she had to hope Jean would not fall pregnant, because then there would be a problem that none of them wanted to deal with. There were already too many Tainted Ones, walking in the light with skin like leather. Granted these were not the first people she had lost, and she knew they weren't going to be the last, but this had been a serious flaw in her judgement and because she had not been aware of it until now she had not seen a need to adopt different practoces.

Now thy had to burn their dead, and head back to Rome. There would be an investigation over this and she would be lucky to come out of this with a job. Night fell and a cool breeze washed over them all and the moon shone in the sky.