“I complicate things?" Nat asked.

"You scare me," Jane said, finally looking Nat in the eyes.

“You want Red and"

"I want Red to be happy. And I've never seen her as happy as she is with you." Nat smiled. "Sure, I wanted her available so we could play our stupid little drama out every time I came around. I knew that wasn't going to last. But I'm going to be around a lot more, assuming the universe still exists in a week or so. The Strays need my help and, quite frankly, I miss these guys. I know you're freaked about me being around. You don't need to be. Red is yours. But you're going to have to accept my presence. Red seems to think you've got a little iron in your spine that most people can't see.

I hope she's right. I'd like to be friends Jane. But that would take two of us."

Jane was staring at her shoes and gripping the hem of her mustard-yellow work smock. "I'd like that," she said softly. "She always says you brought out the best in her." Jane raised her face again. "That counts for something."

"I may have brought it out, but you get to keep it. I'd say that puts you ahead." Natasha was pleased that Jane was smiling now.

"What was she like?" Jane asked. "When you first met her? She said she was . . . butch?"

Nat laughed outright at that. "You have no idea. She "INTRUDERS!" came a shout from Shield. He had reestablished a warning system a hundred yards or so out around the complex, and it was triggering alarms in his brain.

The lycanthropes immediately went to the windows and sniffed the wind.

"Hellspawn?! Again?!" Michael exclaimed.

"And Shadow Hounds," Mindy added. "Together? Those things never .

"Cravens," Besla said. While a harpies sense of smell was not nearly what her comrades was, she could hear the shrieks of the winged demons in the distance.

“Damn it!" Tarloh said. They just were never going to get any rest.

“Why the hell..."

"It's the Elder God," Jane said. Part of the Shoggoth would always be stuck in the back of her mind, and she suddenly sensed a familiar energy. But the Master's power dwarfed its servant's, even when trapped in another dimension. "Somehow it's directing them."

"Shit," Red growled. "It knows we've got something that could stop it from escaping."

Lothar nodded. “It may not be able to get at us directly, but anything that has any magical sense knows its coming by now. Every living thing is going to have to choose a side, and my guess is they've made their decision."

“They've chosen death then," Red replied grimly. It was time to do what she did best. She looked at the assembled forces, all of whom seemed to turn instinctively to her. Even Besla and her Raptors were listening.

“Okay folks," she started, “here's what we're going to do. They're coming in from the west. Besla, get the Raptors out the back. Fly up but stay out of the moon. Wait until their forwards are in, then attack their rear. Get them to panic when their forces are split."

She watched as Besla nodded and the Raptors fluttered, pattered and slithered out the back. "Shield . . ."

"Yes ma'am?"

"Don't bother trying to cover all the exits. Hold the main doors.

Make ‘em come in one at a time through the others. That gives us four points of attack. Gruesome threesome," she said to Mindy, Matthew and Michael. Take the corner next to the kitchen. Johan, Snake and Nat," she said, “you three are upstairs next to the railing. Nat, you take point on that." She looked at her co-leader."