A tired looking detective in an off the rack suit watched the interview with the lone surviving cartel member. The inebriated young man had hidden in the tank of a portable john to save himself. Other officers laughed or shook their heads as he ranted almost incoherently about monsters killing his cohorts. "I'm telling you, they were killed by el cadejos and el demonios. Everything mi abuela told me was true. Santa Maria, salva mi alma... por favor, take me to a church. I don't want them to get me." And when he wasn't ranting, he was fumbling over the words of a rosary.

"Sargent Biaz, his tox screen came back for meth, pot, bath salts, ket, and alcohol. We won't get any information outta him. Hell, they probably stuffed him in that porta-potty to get him to shut up. I don't think they thought he'd crawl down the crapper." A CSI in a lab coat handed him the paperwork. "We should probably send him to the hospital to detox before he has a freaking heart attack. You know the media won't care who he is or why he died if he dies in custody."

"Call an ambulance and see if you can get him to shower first." The Sargent stood alone in the observation room then made a call. "I told you not to get involved."

"If you don't want me and my servants to cull your criminals, then deal with them as your kind has always dealt with your criminals." There was a stream of hissing, trilling, and clicking that let him know she was arguing with one of her own kind, probably the one she called her uncle.

"I have to follow the law, unlike you. Where are the girls and their stash?"

"The girls are being given medical treatment, the guns and drugs are destroyed, and the cash is my fee for no witnesses," she answered flippantly. "You should be thanking me."

He snorted derisively, "Really? You missed one."

"Impossible." The bitter sounding female gargoyle snarled.

"He crawled in the tank of the porta-potty, while he was higher than the moon. He is ranting to anyone who will listen that dog-monsters and demons killed his group. Damn it, Anjael (Angel), you were careless," he "accused.

"They took my feeder's niece and are pushing their crap in my club. I told you to deal with them or I would. And now I have." She hung up. "Stupid humans." Then looked at those in the room, "What?"

"I told you we shouldn't get involved." Handsome werewolf male snarled at her, "Rule number one: Don't rile up the humans. If you will expose us, they will come after all of us."

The albino female laughed coldly, mocking, "Foolish mortal, if a few humans did not already know about the nonhuman species, we would have all been extinct by the end of the crusades."

"Easy Anjael, he's not yet thirty. He lives by the wolf laws of no human exposure. They have misconstrued the purges to blame the humans, just as the humans remember the crusades as religious campaigns and not a war for the very life blood of the old continent." A tall man who was as dark as she was pale, admonished her.

"Uncle Ouroboros, you are too patient with them." Her tail thrashed as she bared her teeth at him.

He admonished her, "Put your demoness away, she is just grumpy you did not get to finish your evening's entertainment last night. Go and bed your consort or have a feed before you sleep. I need to visit the survivor. Did Biaz say where he was taken?"

"No. You'll have to call him back." She snapped at him waspishly.

"Blood of my blood, do not take that tone with me." They glared at each other in a battle of wills, clicking, trilling, and hissing in the language of their kind until Ouroboros turned and walked out.

"What did you argue with him about?" The wolf demanded but she didn't answer, she just looked at the ornate Persian rug on the floor. "Well?"

Silver-blue eyes with pupils that were slit like a cat's but sideways regarded the young alpha wolf in the room. "He said I should make you comply, I am a queen."

He snarled at her, "No. I let my beast have his way on the full and dark moon; tonight is neither." He shuddered almost convulsively for almost a minute before he shook his head. A thin sheen of sweat covered his body as he panted against the pain of fighting his other self.

She glided across the knotted silk surface, until they were almost touching. A forked tongue flicked a bead of sweat away as her tail wrapped his leg. "Your beast seems willing to have me as his mate, Abel." Her voice purred and he wanted to submit but he hated being her thrall.

"My wolf is deceived, and my mate has gone to the moon. I will fulfill my obligation to you per our contract. My wolf will have to be satisfied with our agreement, and nothing more. If you want a fu*k go find one. It's the humans' Halloween holiday. Go wander the streets as yourself, succubus, and do not call me that name, I am Lazarus now." He growled then stomped out.

Anjael sagged after he left. Her queen and his beast loved each other, but she had long ago given up on love. She was one of only five females capable of laying. Unless she and the other Queens could find a way to bear offspring more than once every century or so, they were the second to last generation of their kind. Her mind when back to their evening interrupted. The lowest of her clan had come in the form of his stone lion-dog to interrupt with the news because they knew her demoness would not harm him for ruining her night with her beast. Flustered and bothered, she went out to her car and drove herself to the city of sin. It sparkled like a place of the faeries or phoenixes or dragons, but she knew it was an illusion wrought by technology. Her car carried her toward a party in Blue Diamond. She stopped a mile from the gate and pulled the invite from the glove box.

"I don't want to do it. I don't want to go there, please don't make us," Anjael begged her other self, but the queen within wanted to dominate and be dominated tonight.

Getting out she stripped naked, then allowed the first level of her demoness to overtake herm shifting to her succubus form. Her skin became more pale and marble-like. Horns curled from her head as fangs grew from her bottom canines. White bat wings spread from her back as her tail became more substantial. Her breasts and hips became fuller. She took her gray pashmina and tied it around her neck so the beaded fringe hung like a necklace, then wrapped the rest over her breasts, around her ribs, and from back to front so the other end hung like an apron from her hips with her thick white gold necklace securing it. It was a garment style she had worn many times as a child so many centuries ago.

Getting back in her car, she drove to the gate and handed the invite to a shirtless man in a gimp hood. His eyes peered at it through slits then at her. He was an excellent specimen of male to look at, but she could smell the steroids and false food supplements in his blood to make his muscles larger. The thought of his blood made her want to gag as she let them park her car. She held her wings and tail rigidly still as she walked up the steps in her 'costume'.

"Lady Anjael, thank you so much for coming," the vampire host greeted her, leering at her near nudity. "You are in second place for the costume contest."

"And who is first?" Her demoness purred.

"I believe one of your fellow models came as Lady Godiva, a topless Lady Godiva." He smirked at her breasts barely covered by the thin cloth. "But I believe hers are implants, whereas yours aren't or are they?"

Anjael smiled at him like prey then she leaned forward and whispered. "Don't you want to touch them to be certain?"

His hand almost shook as he assessed them. "Oh yes, they are very nice and very real."

She reached up and undid the knot at the back of her neck. The end of the long scarf fell away, hanging down to her ankles in back. He ran his thumb over the place where humans and vampires had nipples.

"How did you get the latex to cover so smoothly?" he said in awe, looking at the smooth perfection that was her flesh.

"It covers my whole body like a second skin."

"You look like a statue." He complimented, "So beautiful and perfectly formed. Like you belong in a church."

She laughed as another car pulled up. "Perhaps a church of the profane... May I go in?"

"You may; happy Halloween, Lady Anjael. Enjoy the party." The vampire grinned showing off his real fangs. "If you don't find a companion for the night..."

She smirked at him, and winked, "You know better, Master Vampire. You have no soul to feed my inner demon."

He laughed as she walked away from him. He had no idea what she really was beyond the myths her uncle had been spreading for centuries, making many assume the Bibre Cruor and the Deamones were the same species. Only a few knew the first one was on the verge of extinction due to genetically programmed breeding constraints, and the other had been purposely hunted into extinction with the Unicorns. Their unholy trinity alliance with the Nosferatu had almost overtaken the world during the dark ages. Only a few non-human shifter species had survived the backlash by the humans.

Inside she wandered from floor to floor, and room to room. Gliding gracefully like a queen surveying her kingdom. Every kind of sex act was going on and none of them interested her but as the owner of a brothel and several nightclubs, she was expected at events like this.

"Do you see anything you like?" The vampire born of a human asked her.

She could smell the blood in his wine, from an adult female vampire, freely given. "Perhaps. You?"

"I do now." He grinned. His fangs shined pearl white in the dim light, but his eyes were so dark they were almost black with a shimmer of scarlet.

Her queen stirred, curious and aroused by his power. "You're from New Orleans."

He looked confused for a moment, "How? How did you know?"

She leaned forward and whispered, using her enthrallment tone, "I can smell the bayou and Bourbon Street on you, son of Le Moyne."

His rich brown eyes flashed red for a moment as he regarded her, leaning closer. His words breathless with lust. "What are you?"

"A demon queen you won't remember... I haven't had a vampire halfling in... oh... centuries. You do want me, don't you?" She murmured as she kissed him.

"And what do you want?" He asked huskily.

"It's my birthday... what do you think I want?" She smiled, licking her lower fangs. "Let us leave this place, there are cameras everywhere."

"And go where?" he muttered into her neck, as he peppered it with kisses.

"Out into the night where monsters like us belong." She pulled him out onto a balcony. Her claws dragging on the wall, easily cut the discreet cable tucked fitted in a corner. She was grateful the host had not yet upgraded to wireless cameras. He wouldn't because then his surveillance would be more easily detected, and he would lose his blackmail revenue stream. She kissed the halfling vampire again. "Catch me if you can."

Leaping off, her wings allowed her to glide to the ground, then she ran into the dark garden and leapt over the wall, going out to the desert. He grinned as he became something more than his mortal form, laying his shirt and jacket over a chair before he sprinted after her, blurring into a shadow. He looked around at the end of her scent trail by a still pool. Her garment lay on the sandstone edge covered in her tantalizing scent. His shadow was intrigued but also wary. It did not know what manner of creature she was, only that it wanted her, and he hoped he had not been lured to his death. For many minutes, he waited and searched with his enhanced senses.

"Olly olly oxen free, come out, my queen." The Le Moyne vampire called.

She rose from the water in a smooth motion, looking like a statue of a Venus in the waning moonlight. Then she laid back in the water, her white hair floating around her as her wings supported her body, offering herself to him until he was too exhausted to move. He woke hours later, back in his hotel suite, only remembering the beautiful creature flying him there. Stretching languidly, he wondered if it were real and who he had spent the night with. He couldn't remember so he wondered what was in the blood wine he had been offered at the masquerade party hosted by the Las Vegas Coven.

"Happy Halloween to me." He sighed and fell back asleep.

/\^^^^/\

Anjael landed on the roof of an old Spanish cathedral. The gargoyle held up her arms as her wings wrapped around her like a toga. Turning, she looked at the line of gold forming on the horizon then she turned and fled inside. Her feet shifted from claws as she walked down the steps barefoot. Another year come and gone, one more to add eight-hundred-sixty since her hatching. Draping her pashmina over her head, she slipped into the rafters and hid herself among the carved statues of saints to listen to the All Saint's Day mass.

Her voice joined the choir, then she chanted the prayers with the congregation. Prayers she had known since she was a child sheltering in a French monastery before the age of enlightenment began. The humans, wolves, and witches left. She heard a clicking and looked down at one of congregants lighting a candle. D'artane kept his head bowed as he spoke in their language.

'My queen, your car awaits in the back alley.'

Sighing, Anjael Anutari Wasi left her perch and went back to the roof.

A Benedictine Monk waited for her, holding a communion cup and wafer. "My child, you missed the Holy Day Mass."

Anjael bowed her head, kneeling, "Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been one month since my last confession."

He listened carefully as she confessed with extraordinarily little detail to the attack and murders of sex traffickers and drug dealers, of killing a man who had been raping his children and a woman who was poisoning her child for attention, of beating several men who abused women, and about sex with a werewolf and a vampire halfling.

"You have had a busy month, fallen angel. Doing much good but committing many sins," the old monk admonished, he pronounced her penance then added in an amused tone, "Go with God, and I would add sin no more but..."

"But I'm a demon and can't help it?" She giggled sadly.

"Something like that."

Kissing him on the cheek, she pressed a piece of paper into his hand. Anjael looked over the edge of the roof. D'artane stood with the door open. She hopped over the edge, landed with a heavy thud, then got in the car. Closing the door, D'artane bowed his head to the monk. The old Benedictine watched them drive away then looked at the paper. Shaking his head slowly at the amount; selling illegal drugs and sex was profitable business, until it wasn't. The profit became the church's thanks to a repentant fallen angel turned vigilante.