Evan

        By the time everyone had gotten up and staggered into the living room Grandpa and Luka were now having a yelling match across the living room. It was hilarious everyone still in their bed clothes at noon Aiden, Trey, Eli, Leo and Alan were shirtless claiming it restricted their sleep. Which is total bull because even though they sleep without shirts at their houses they usually sleep with shirts here at grandpas ranch, but most likely they were doing this just to show off. For who? I don't know, they're crazy.

    "Oh for gracious sakes will you boys put some clothes on?!" Luka took half a second from yelling at grandpa to yell at the guys.

"Admit it!" Grandpa shouted.

        "You know what fine Rubin you win you have more stories than I do! Now, I'm gonna call my head of security!" Luka twirled around and picked up the house phone. After two rings they picked up and then we all saw her retch the phone away from her ear a second later. Even from across the room, I could hear the yelling on the phone, but Luka just held an annoyed bored look on her face.

"Au... Audrey. Audrey will you... AUDREY WILL YOU PLEASE LET ME TALK?!" Luka finally yelled into the phone.

    "Okay now hold on I'm putting you on speaker." She reached down and pressed a button and the lady on the line was still talking.

"Oh! Is that Audrey?" Chazz called from the room he'd been in. "Tell her hi!"

    "Tell me hi yourself!" Came Audrey's answer from the phone. "Plus you still owe me 20 dollars asshole!"

"I'll give it to you soon." Chazz said waving her off even though she couldn't see it.

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        Luka gave Audrey, her head of security, the full story about what went down and she listened. Eventually they got so involved in their conversation that they couldn't even hear what anyone else commented, well everyone except Chazz. The front door opened and closed and a really tall and tan girl with blonde hair came in and started getting food from the bar. My family all looked at her curiously because we didn't know who she was.

"Did Mary find anything?" Audrey asked.

    "You know I'm not sure." Luka looked around the room and I don't know how she knew the girl was there but she did "Hey Mary did you find anything useful?"

The blonde girl who must have been Mary ignored her and kept looking at her phone.

"Mary?"

"Mary!"

"What?" Mary asked not looking up.

"Did you find anything useful?" Luka asked again.

"I mean it took a second but yeah I found a few things." Mary said vaguely.

"Liiiike?"

        "Well they most definitely had either a witch, wizard or warlock helping them. They were also using a cloaking spell so when I got rid of it four more bodies appeared in the lobby, but they were different from the fawn. Not just species wise, but more in the way they were killed. But we still couldn't find a scent trail." She expounded.

    "I'll look into it and send you what I can find on the new bodies and then we can go from there Luka." Audrey said then hung up.

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Chazz

        I was currently teetering on the back legs of a stool while leaning against the bar with my head lulled back. Hearing the boss sigh I opened my closed eyes and lifted my head to assess her. She seemed slightly more frazzled than normal, but not to the point where she was going to be stressed.

"Chazz."

    "Ya boss?" I pushed off the bar waiting for the boss to continue. Her hands rubbed at her face which is a tell of hers that I picked up and means she's starting to get stressed.

    "Go find Mike and wake him up? It would appear we need his expertise." The boss sighed while an exasperated look was thrown at the vaulted ceiling.

    I chuckled at the boss' antics at the mention of Mike but got up nonetheless threw my hand in the air as a goodbye and walked out the door.

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Trey

        We sat in silence as the basilisks' lieutenant walked out the door to find this Mike person. I was leaned forward on my elbows with my hands folded and my chin resting on them watching the basilisk. I still wasn't totally sure about her no matter what Grandpa Rubin and Evan said, thought, or had prior relations with. I would feel her out myself and see if this is how she really is or if this is all an act. The basilisk had leaned back in her seat with her eyes closed, she'd pulled her legs up into the chair 'Indian style' and stayed like that.

"Is your witch always like that or was that all an act for us?" I rumbled out.

        She peeked at me through her eyelashes. "Nah she's always like that." Shrugging she continued "She's not that bad though and she gets things done when she needs to. She only tolerates me and that's on a good day." The basilisk finished chuckling softly.

    "You never did answer the question Nessa asked last night." I'd leaned back now and had dropped my right hand to my lap, but held my chin in my left.

    The basilisk flashed a mirthless smile at me. "Which one would that be Trey?" She feigned ignorance batting her eyelashes.

"If you were The Basilisk or not." I tried not to sound as curious as I felt.

"Why do you want to know?" She closed her eyes again but I didn't think it was because of stress.

        "It's an honest question seeing how no one's really met A Basilisk let alone The Basilisk." My response had come off nonchalant, but I was tense. It was almost like a hunt for me the thrill of finding things and weaknesses about my prey. How they think and move or when they feel threatened or cornered.

        "What would you do if I said I was The Basilisk? Hmmm?" She knew I was on the hunt and now she was baiting me. She'd done it subtly with her body language keeping it open and not closed off as if inviting me to continue with my hunt.

"Well it would be nice to know who I'm addressing." I said matter-of-factly.

        She smiled wide at my comment, a full teeth smile that revealed to sharp canines from her upper lip. "Oh, ho! Mr. Macho needs to know does he?" As she taunted me her irises became crimson red slits like a snakes. She slowly floated up from her seat, but turned upside down like the Cheshire Cat from 'Alice in Wonderland'.

        My eyes widened just a fraction as she did all of that and I tensed up, but I would not give her the satisfaction of letting her know she'd gotten to me. Everyone else either gasped, stepped back, jumped back or clung onto the person nearest them. I guess my family forgot that in the presence of a predator you're not supposed to show fear. As my cousins' fear slowly consumed the room I felt my eyes change as my wolf started to get antsy.

   "Stop that please." I growled respectfully because I knew if I demanded anything she would only continue her antics.

    "Alright." Luka, yes she'd finally gotten my respect, sounded appeased. Slowly she turned back around and sat as she had before with her eyes closed waiting. "To answer your question, yes I am The Basilisk."

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Luka

        It was so funny to watch the room explode with action after I told them who exactly I was. Still I was getting antsy about how long it was taking Chazz and Mike. I know how Mike is and even if he put up a fight Chazz could've had them back here within seconds, something just wasn't sitting right with me.

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Chazz

        "Mike!" I called for the billionth time pounding on his apartment door. The rundown cash place in the middle of Atlanta had stains all over the narrow hall walls. Mike's banged up door was probably the only one in almost pristine condition with his rusted golden nineteen hanging on the door, but the nine was slightly crooked. A thud came from in the apartment and then a second later unintelligible yelling came from a male voice.

        As the yelling came closer I could tell Mike was yelling something about rude people not knowing when to stop and what not. Then he threw the door open his head didn't even lift as he leaned against the doorframe throwing his hand up to dismiss me.

        "When the person inside his home doesn't answer the door the first five times you knock that tells you TO GO AWAY!" Mike emphasized 'to go away' and any other day I would have been bent over laughing at his disheveled appearance. But we had things to do for the Boss so I leaned against the door with my shoulder and my arms crossed over my chest.

       "Well if you would have opened the door the first five times I wouldn't've had to keep knocking." I said sarcastically. "And if I'd had more time I would have stopped to get your boyfriend who, might I add, has keys."

        Mike finally glanced up at me and I could see underneath his longish bangs to the dark circles under his eyes. His square face looked a little long with the stress of what had to be a few weeks of sleepless nights. Though his full lips wore his usual pout when he wanted to get his way.

        "No he doesn't need to be here right now he'd have even less sleep than I would if he were here. My seeings have been ramped up the past week and they're happening multiple times a day right now." Mike looked away from me and into the apartment where he'd finally opened the door.

        "Well come on the Boss needs us and you and I both know that your seeings always calm down when Trey's around." Pointedly looking at him over my shades where I was still leaned against the doorway.

        A defeated sound bubbled out of his throat. "You're right... Of course you're right but we're not here to talk about that are we? You said Boss needed us? I'll go pack a bag and be right out. Kay? Kay." He didn't even let me get a word in just grabbed a few things from his living room and went to pack his bag avoiding the conversation entirely. All I could do was shake my head at his eagerness to talk about something else.

        Voices travelled up the stairs hushed and strange. I don't know what made me think we were going to see some action, but I usually trusted those instincts. So I whispered a charm and the door across from me became a reflection of the stairwell. Three guys all dressed in black including masks one of the guys had two pillow cases it looked like. Another had rope strapped across his chest with a 12 gauge shotgun pointed at the floor in his hands. The last had a glock at the ready clasped in both hands it looked as though he was the leader too.

        The leader took one hand, made a go signal and they started moving and so was I. I waved my hand and the reflection vanished just as I closed and locked the door. My hands hit a few of the wards carved into the back of Mikes door while pushing some of my power to activate them. They quickly hummed with energy and slid softly into place I backed away from the door watching it just in case the wards wouldn't hold.

"Hey Mike?..." I called uneasily.

"What Chazz? I'm almost done packing."

    "Well you might wanna hurry" Just then I heard the shotgun go off and I was even more grateful for the wards holding up. "We have unwanted visitors!"

        Mike raced out of the room next to me his head coming to just below my nose his eyes as wide as saucers. Then his whole face took on an irritated look as he slung his backpack onto his shoulder.

"Now they're gonna charge me more for rent!"

"I don't think that's our main issue at the moment!"

        He just rolled his eyes at that and walked to where his living room doubled as a kitchen and opened a window onto the fire escape. I made sure Mike went first and had started down the first ladder then just as I'd gotten on the ledge the door burst open and the leader guy lifted his gun and fired. It grazed my bicep as I hopped down through the hole in the fire escape and fell down the last few rungs.

        Shots were still being fired at us from Mikes' apartment as we almost flung ourselves down the ladders fortunately for us Mike only lived on the third floor. When we reached the bottom I hailed a cab and shoved Mikes' petite body in the cab first then mine and told the cabbie to drive.

    As we peeled away from the curb I looked back at the apartment building just before we turned the corner I saw our assailants run out of the building. They didn't see us so I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Why didn't we just take my car?" Mike asked grumpily.

        "Because they probably know your plates and have someone else watching to follow you and finish the job." I reasoned to him. I moved my right arm just a bit and winced in pain. I huffed out a breath and mulled over the thought that I might need stitches and Mike pouted the whole ride back to the ranch house.