It didn’t take long for her to reach the police but she didn’t rush so that she could collect her thoughts.
This is not an ideal situation and something that will be a pain to handle. Since in the basement there are 10 to 20 cultists that have their guns aimed at the entrance. It would be suicide to try and storm it. Though on the other hand, there might be other children in there which will restrict our ability to use explosives wantonly. So this might turn into a siege where we try and force them out somehow. Though trying to force a determined enemy to leave a fortified position is nigh impossible. Though it would also not be the best if they stormed up the stairs since there's a chance that the 4 of us could be overwhelmed. Though the chances of that are somewhat slim with us having a machine gun that can easily suppress the numbers that they might bring to bear at close range and a shotgun that I have that can do a number at close range. Even so I don’t want to underestimate angry cultists that are pissed off about their base being raided and their fellow cultists being killed.
Lucia stopped her thoughts when she reached the car that Police chief Matthew was by. Lucia could see him and another officer talking to a teens who seemed to already be a lot more relaxed when she left them by the police.
He then saw that Lucia was approaching so after saying a couple of words to them and then to a police officer, he turned his attention to Lucia.
“Do you have something to report?
Lucia nodded “Yes we managed to secure the first two floors but it seems that the majority of the cult has retreated to the basement and has presumably barricaded themselves in it.”
Matthew nodded, though slowly and hesitantly before slowly speaking. “What do you make of the situation?”
Lucia took a moment to collect her thoughts before responding with a monotone voice. “Well it is a rather difficult situation since there is no easy way to secure the basement. As we can’t repeat what we did with the above ground floors and even if the police were to join which would allow you to brute force it. It would be extremely costly and something that I wouldn’t recommend. So what has to be done now is to either get them to come out and surrender or to pressure them to try and leave the basement. Though neither will be easy.”
Matthew’s face stiffens and he lets out a long sigh as he rubs his face with his hands. As he processes what he has just been told. It then took him a minute to respond. “Let me think about this for a bit, I want to let you know that 4 teens that you brought out said that there are several children that are still in there and that because they are innocent in all of this, we are limited in what we may use to get them to leave their basement. I also agree that we can’t brute force it because I don’t want a repeat of what happened 3 years ago. Uhh, I have to think this over for a bit and I also have to remind you that you will probably be responsible for the 4 teens after this is all over because I can’t think of anyone more capable of such a task, than you.”
He was talking with a solemn voice for most of it but when he started talking about Lucia and the 4 teens he had a sly grin that unconsciously formed on his face.
Lucia’s face didn’t change much on the outside but that didn’t mean that she was happy about the mayor using the teens to make Lucia’s life more difficult. Though the main reason that she was annoyed was not that she might have to take care of the teens for a small amount of time as their legal guardian until they reach adulthood. Which for the youngest is only 4 years away and for the oldest it is just less than 2. No, the main reason is why the police chief did it out of pure spite towards Lucia.
Though Lucia shrugged it off and nodded her head while saying “Then I will go and have a word with them before heading back to the others. Though any meaningful discussions will have to wait until this situation is settled.” In a voice that was mostly monotone, with a small hint of coldness that most people wouldn’t recognize. Though Matthew could definitely tell and could only his eyes and stifle his laughter towards Lucia’s poor attempt at showing her annoyance.
She then walked over to where the 4 teens were sitting and talking with one another and made sure that they were doing ok. Which Lucia could tell that they were as they had more relaxed faces, though they still had some anxiety present. As even if they escaped from their danger, they must know that there is a large chance that something might happen to their parents and even if they survived the raid and either surrendered or were captured. They would most certainly serve a lengthy prison sentence for their involvement in a shot out with the police and possibly for other crimes. Though sadly their is a greater chance that they would end up dead somehow.
As in Lucia’s experience cultists were notorious for fighting to the death due to them being fanatically loyal to their cult which was often due to manipulation and brainwashing to some extent. Though that was usually from the more serious cults, while the less extreme cults that usually revolve around a personality cult don't usually escalate to such an extreme. Which is something that Lucia has found to be quite odd with this cult. Though she has long given up trying to wrap her head around the reasons that they are so violent, though she really should and just tried to understand patterns to better deal with them.
After checking up on the teens Lucia started to make her way back to the house. But before she did that she grabbed a couple extra shotgun shells, and told Matthew to send a cop over once he made a decision. Though he said that he would send some cops to replace the 3 private detectives, so that they could relax. So Lucia went back to the house with 5 cops who all had shotguns that could be used to push back any efforts of the cult to fight their way out of the building.
Once they arrived Lucia updated her comrades on the situation and told them to take a break as they had been on alert for around 2 hours by this point if not longer. Since Lucia had only estimated the time since they had arrived there, she wasn’t particularly confident on it.
Though just as they were about to do that, several cultists ran up the stairs opening fire before retreating. Though it was quite the failure for them as the police and private detectives were able to quickly open up on them, killing 2 of them and most likely wounding the other 2 quite badly. While the cultists only managed to wound 1 of the cops being hit in the right arm. The cop was then walked out by Thomas and Jerry. Who went to go by the police cars to take their break. William left but instead of joining Thomas and Jerry he said that he was going to talk to the teens.
Lucia on the other hand decided to stay to take the wounded cop's place and because she had sort of already taken a break of sorts, when she was talking to Matthew and later the teens. So she wasn’t in as much of a need of one as the other 3.
So while a plan was devised an uneasy peace settled on to the farmhouse as both the cult and the police planned out their next moves.
