Charon sat with the lap top on her desk, she looked over at the clock ticking away on the wall. It was now 2am. She got up and stretched her legs, stopping to look out of the window, she watched the mist rolling across the grounds. She set the lap top to scan the hundreds of monitors within the grounds, it came up with nothing again and she grinned. She wandered out of her study on the top floor of the mansion and wandered down to the kitchen and flicked the kettle on without turning on any of the lights.

The kettle came to the boil and it was the slightest rustle of clothing but she heard it before she felt the displacement of air as a blow began its downward journey. She shifted quickly to one side, sensing rather than seeing the arm on the other end of the short black cosh, she deflected it and moved towards the doorway and the larger hallway beyond it. She found her way blocked by a tall, thin figure, she jabbed upwards to the figures solar plexus and was rewarded with an exhalation of breath and a small wheeze as the figure was winded. She shoved the figure sideways and moved into the large hallway, she moved quickly and grabbed a katana from the wall, it wasn't by far her most favourite weapon but it would do.

There was a small popping noise and she moved quickly, drawing the sword across herself as she spun, the bullet pinged off the blade and hit the wall behind her. At least this proved one thing, security at the mansion wasn't nearly good enough.

She backflipped across the hall as several small sharp discs flew around her and ducked down behind the banister, she listened hard and could just discern the movement of the figure, he was making his way up the stairs, that meant he knew where she was. She grinned again. She took a small device from her back pocket and shot an almost imperceptible line of nylon up at the chandelier, it caught and held. She attached the other end of the device to the back of her black jeans and she felt the sharp tug as the line lifted her up off the floor and towards the ceiling. It pulled her across and backwards creating a swing effect and as it swung her back towards the stairs, she slashed the line and tumbled through the air in a graceful forward roll motion. Her feet touched down on the banister and she sprung forwards again with a dropkick that caught the figure in the back of the knee's as he ran upwards towards the upper floors of the mansion. He crumpled, then half turned as Charon's full weight landed on him, she was moving too quickly to react to his next move which was zapping her with enough electricity to stun an elephant. She grunted and the figure made to grab her and shove her over the banister but she bought her knee's up and then shot both legs up into his stomach and he stumbled backwards hitting the wall hard and rolled backwards down the stairs.

Charon took several deep breaths trying to ignore the pain of the jolt of the electricity, she got it under control and then slid down the banisters. The figure was already up and on the move and a minature crossbow bolt zinged past her ear as she reached the newel post. She jumped down and rolled across the floor, grabbing a small dagger from her boot at the same time and sending it whistling towards the dark figure, she heard the familiar thud of metal in wood as the figure seemed to whirl out of the way of the well aimed weapon. Time to stop messing about.

Charon ran and slid across the hallway floor while releasing her favourite nailgun from its sheath under her left arm. She moved in behind the suit of armour as several shots pinged off the front of it and opened up the plinth it was stood on, she took the nails out and dipped them in a strong drugging solution and loaded them up, then she took out the nightvision glasses and put them on, the black suddenly became a weird greenish colour and the black figure stood out like a sore thumb. The glasses picked out an object being thrown in her direction and she swore loudly, throwing herself as far from the armour as she could as the silent grenade hit and exploded.

The concussion from the blast had woken both Augustus and Kali, Augustus who'd been working on his computer had fallen asleep on the keyboard and jerked awake, the imprint of the keys on the left side of his face. Kali on the other hand wasn't overly concerned, yawned and turned over and went back to sleep. Augustus rushed to the top of the stairs and yelled. Charon had avoided the worst of the blast, although several pieces of shrapnel had embedded themselves in her right cheek and that had really annoyed her but not as much as Augustus yelling his head off and giving the intruder extra ammunition. She saw the figure move towards the stairs and she fired the first volley of nails, they caught him in the back of the leg, he cussed but continued to run cat like upwards towards Augustus. Charon threw the nightvision glasses off and followed him, Augustus had ventured further down the stairs turning on lights as he went. Charon could now clearly see the figure and fired again, this time the nails caught the man right across the back. He continued upwards, he was bloody persistant.

At the final landing Augustus came round the corner face to face with the intruder, they were both so shocked neither man did anything until Charon fired another volley of nails hitting the intruder in the back of the neck. The intruder grabbed Augustus round the throat, Augustus screeched and then Charon laughed as the man suddenly relinquished his hold on consciousness and fell to the floor. Augustus looked down and then back up at his mother.

"Who the fucking hell is that?"

Charon leaned up against the railing and gestured towards the unconscious man.

"Meet Mr Gray. He's just proven how easy it is to get into the mansion if you have the right tools for the job."