Anderson was not happy. His first instinct was to geek Petal. Lena pointed out that since she was required to provide Petal with physical protection, if he attacked Petal before Petal broke her word, Lena would be forced to defend Petal, so Anderson agreed not to attack Petal until Petal attacked someone else. Thus, Anderson went into watch and wait mode, waiting for Petal to (inevitably) break the rules. Petal, rubbing her hands with glee and the situation, began learning a "slay brown-haired dog shaman" spell. And Lena started developing an ulcer.
This did not mean that Lena stopped running with Petal. After all, they had worked together for over a year. (Besides she was trying to provoke a show of concern out of Anderson) Thus, Lena got a juicy job offer, and called Petal, Warder, and Razor, to accompany her on it. Anderson was not pleased about Lena going off with Petal, but he didn’t not want to interfere and potentially drive Lena off. So he decided to set a watcher on her without her knowledge so that he would know if Petal tried to pull anything.
On the way to the run, Warder spotted the watcher hiding behind Lena. He mentioned it to Lena. Lena wasn’t sure whose watcher it was, she realized it could be Anderson’s but thought it unlikely he would place one without warning her and felt if he was spying on her he deserved what he got. Besides, she didn’t want to take the risk of it possibly belonging to the Johnson or the target. So she asked Petal to get rid of it, which Petal did.
The run itself went smooth. Not only did they achieve the objective, but they managed to steal a loaded semi full of high quality illegal electronics (this is where everybody made their big money and Razor earned enough to buy back his soul). Lena was the only one injured, having taken a few bullets in the fire fight (eight boxes). All four runners were in the van driving back when Petal’s spirits started being killed. Petal went astral and discovered that Anderson and one of his spirits was killing them. Petal attacked Anderson in astral combat. (Anderson was alarmed by the fact his watcher was destroyed by Petal and had started searching for Lena astrally. When he found her, she was sitting, badly injured in the back of a van with Petal surrounded by Petal’s mantis spirits he became alarmed as he assumed Petal was responsible for the injuries and decided to do something about it. Since he had agreed not to attack Petal until she attacked someone else, he did the only thing he could - he started killing her spirits until he provoked her into attacking him.) Razor was driving. Warder was watching the battle with his astral sight and reporting what he saw to the others. Lena was very upset but had little ability to stop the fight. Anderson’s spirit was killed and Anderson himself was losing badly and about to go down when Warder acted. He tazered Petal’s body, mortally injuring her. Finally, the injured Anderson manifested to check with Lena, and Lena told him Petal had nothing to do with her injuries and that him should go home and they would talk about it there. Anderson vanished. Lena dropped Petal at a clinic in a different neighborhood and went home.
Unfortunately, Petal cam so close to dying that Starr went free. At first, she was content to hole up in Petal’s old place and begin planning to take over the world. Lena and Anderson were not pleased about having a free spirit loose in the neighborhood and arranged to set up her, along with Runner, to take a fall. She got out of the trap and was very upset. So, Starr started wreaking havoc on the neighborhood. Not only did she uses her free spirit powers, but Petal’s arsenal as well. She called Anderson and used the command power to get him to try to kill Lena (she knocked him unconscious until he felt better), loosed a series of LAWs and other small missiles at Lena’s apartment, and generally turned the living room, and the neighborhood, into an unpleasant place to be.
Lena, Anderson, Warder, and Razor fled to a hotel. There, Anderson initiated and then quested for Starr’s true name. Having succeeded in both tasks, they called in some friends to help. (Lena has never quite gotten over her guilt over this situation and still tends to baby Anderson over the point of constitution he lost in this initiation.) Smith, Wesson, Queen, Dancer, and Koren joined them and they summoned and destroyed Starr.
Having destroyed Starr, the magickers decided to post a guard on Petal’s house to kill her when she returned, since Lena wouldn’t tell them which clinic Petal was at. Lena felt she owed Petal something, since it was Lena’s people, not Petal who betrayed the agreement. So she hired Thom to break in and sterilize the genetic samples of all the runners which Petal had stored in her kitchen. Lena got the security system layout from Warder since Sanctuary Securities, Inc., had done the initial work on Petal’s place and gave it to Thom. She let the people watching the building know about this part of the plan and the timing of it, so that their backs were turned when Thom went in.
At the same time, Lena used the other information she had acquired from Petal to have some gang members break in from another direction and remove a loaded semi that Petal had prepared in case a quick escape was necessary (no need to pack). Thom got to the kitchen and set off a fire bomb to solve the problem he was hired to take care of. He left the building and a moment later, the whole building blew up. The people watching assumed Thom had tripped a bobby trap or used a little too much explosive. Actually it was the semi that was trapped and 90 seconds after it had left the building, the building blew. Suffice to say that everyone else believes Petal escaped with her life and nothing else. Last Lena knew, Petal was heading to Chicago in a semi full of illegal weapons.