April 5, 2005 – 15:00 (Montreal Time)
Approaching her rooftop for landing, she saw King Matthew's messenger leaving.
"Hey, luv!" said Frank as he opened the kitchen window to let her in. "You just missed a messenger coming from Chicago."
"Yeah, I know. I saw him leaving when I was about to land. I suppose I should have expected them to send me something just because. I didn't get to talk to them since I walked out of jail, it seems now is the time for it," said Coralis as Frank gave her what he received for her.
"How was the mission?"
Not wanting to sit down because she had a lot of blood on her, she stood in the living room to open the package before going to shower.
"Mission accomplished with success. I did what I agreed to do and bolted out of there right after without even touching the ground when my part was over," said Coralis as she pulled the gift out of its box. "A katana, how fitting."
"With a gargoyle-shaped handle made of ivory. I bet there are no two katanas like that," said Frank, watching Coralis burn her fingertips on the blade. "Silver?"
"Yes, among other things."
Coralis pulled her hologram out of her cloak and turned it to satellite mode.
"After showering, I'll go get a new cell phone, but for now, I guess I'm going to call Veronica the good old way. Good thing I had to call her so often that I know her phone number by heart."
Coralis set the call on speakerphone and put her hologram on the living room table so she could prepare herself a drink. It rang and rang, and she was about to hang up.
"Hendrick on the line."
"Hey, Hendrick! Since when did you become Veronica's personal receptionist? Did I miss that much?"
"BLUE! I should have known it'd be you."
Coralis heard a commotion at the other end of the line.
"SISTER! You know how much of an overbearing brother he became after my name appeared on some lists; can you imagine how bad it got when we heard you got captured?"
"That's why you love me so much, sister," said Hendrick.
"Let me guess, he didn't let you answer because he couldn't tell from whom the call was coming?" said Coralis, with Frank chuckling next to her.
"Can't be too careful these days. We heard from Nicolas. Aah, Blue, only you would dare enter a vampire stronghold looking like a walking feast. You know his guards had to lock up their young vampires when you were there, right?" said Hendrick.
"Hence why you have had a katana sent to me? Isn't it a little counter-productive if I should stop the blood from pouring on me?"
"Only you can make good use of a good blade like that, sister. Nicolas didn't elaborate much, he only said you've been slaying some djinns in South Africa before arriving in Paris after you nearly got captured again in Madrid, but from the way he described how you looked, you made me proud. The blood of how many djinns did you have on you?" said Veronica.
"I lost count after the second dormitory, but between three people, we killed well over 50. It does seem like a very good blade, indeed, made of silver? It feels like silver, but there is something else. Frank loves the handle, by the way."
"Traitor," said Frank, refilling her drink.
"Simplistically put, it's copper core quenched in salt water, dipped in molten crystallized salt, and silver layers added," said Hendrick.
"Basically, the type of blade I don't want to see in the hands of anyone wanting her dead," said Frank.
"Interestingly, the night we escaped jail, we used a sword to complete our mission at the South Africa compound. The little side mission I had this morning, I used a sword to finish off four witches."
"All right. Spill. Now. I want the full story of your jailbreak saga and of what you've been up to until now," said Veronica.
Twenty-five minutes later, Coralis finally was able to shower and go get her cell phone replaced.
April 19, 2005
Over the past 2 weeks, Coralis was kept busy on various missions with the shadow elementals. Going to places heavily warded against elementals who were not part of certain groups, she had to mostly rely on her weaponry skills and anti-magic clothing to protect herself. The katana given to her by the Bowinger family became her go-to weapon.
"What I'm finding most interesting lately," said Frank, seeing her coming home once again with blood splattered all over herself, "is how your former employer insisted on limiting your training to hand and weapon combat, thinking it would make it easier to kill you, and it turned out to be what's making it easier for you to kill their minions. Isn't it ironic?"
"I didn't think of it that way, but you aren't wrong. Stealth training with Milkya has also been very helpful in improving my techniques. Holy gods from above, I never scrubbed so much blood off my skin as I've done for the past 2 weeks, and it gets everywhere."
Meanwhile, in Argentina, Andrew tried again to reach out to Coralis and Alejandro, but couldn't get a connection. He saw their statement in the press and their names were still on most lists, so he knew they were still alive and figured they were probably laying low and in hiding. He considered contacting people he knew were close to them, but he didn't want to be asked questions he didn't want to answer.
Over the past 2 weeks, along with his associates, he finalized their strategies, recruited more skilled warriors and officially formed the Order of Silver Blood. They reviewed the list of EBEE elders and agents they wanted dead and collected information.
Wanting to rival the EBEE and gain influence over them, they acquired an abandoned ski resort in Switzerland. They planned to gradually move there, recruit EBEE agents and become an elite organization ruling the elementals in Europe, without the corruption of the EBEE.
Andrew found out that Elder Roumwiz, from the Spanish branch of the EBEE, worked closely with Elder Alfredino and was the one who gave the order to intercept Blue Thunder and Alejandro Salinz in Madrid. He couldn't prove he was also behind the fire in Blue Thunder's London apartment, but he came to the same conclusion.
Elder Roumwiz would be his next target.