Good Intentions (61 page)

The SUV slowed as it came to the gate. Both guards were there, each holding out a hand to ward off the light and to signal them to stop. They wore long black trench coats and casual black clothes. As the SUV came to a stop, one moved to the vehicle’s left. The other moved to its right. Neither gave any indication of alarm as the windows on both sides of the SUV came down. “The Lady’s court has just convened,” said the one on Taylor’s side. She wasn’t listening. Instead, she took up the pistol in her lap, careful not to knock the empty 2-liter soda bottle over its barrel against the SUV’s door, and fired two shots directly into the guard’s chest. It was horribly loud; as Wade had warned her, the soda bottle did only so much to muffle the noise. The bang of the gun was still more than loud enough inside the vehicle to startle her. She winced after the first shot, but the bul et struck him dead center. The second went a bit high because of Taylor’s unfamiliar and nervous hand, merely grazing his shoulder. He staggered back in shock. Wade was already shooting the other guard with his sub-machinegun, but Taylor wasn’t looking. Instead, she fired four more times. Only two of the shots hit him, but they were enough. One of them went into the side of his head. Taylor felt the snap and click of the hammer striking home against empty shel s in the chamber as she kept pulling the trigger. “Cool, Taylor, it’s cool,” Wade told her in a quiet but hurried voice. His hand was over her wrist, pulling her hands and her weapon back inside. “Y’al did good. Did real good.” Jason and Drew were already out of the pick-up behind them, checking the bodies. Both of the guards had been hiding AK-47s under their coats. “You still up for this?” Wade asked. Taylor swal owed, nodding. “Let’s just do it,” she said. Wade got out of the SUV, leaving the door open. “We’re right behind ya.” As Jason opened up the gate, Drew slipped into the passenger side seat. He held one of the rifles that they had just picked up. Wade gave it a quick check. “It’s ready to go. Point an’ shoot. If one magazine don’t do the job, y’al ain’t

gonna have time t’ reload anyway.” “Great,” Drew scowled. Wade slammed the passenger side door shut and then hustled off to his pick-up, which Jason would still be driving. Drew looked to Taylor. “You al good?” “I’d be better if everyone stopped asking me that!” she snapped nervously. “Cool,” Drew nodded. Then he reached over and popped her seatbelt buckle undone. She glanced down at it, frowned, and then swept the belt away. Drew pul ed the road flare out of his belt, leaving the AK on his lap. In front of them, Jason threw motor oil onto the hood of the vehicle. Wade drenched everything with the contents of their last gas canister. After a long moment, they both gave the thumbs up, then rushed back to the pick-up. “On like Donkey Kong,” Drew told her. * The noises from downstairs were just loud enough to be concerning. Lady Anastacia would have merely ignored it, trusting Blackthorne and the rest of her people to handle things while she carried on, but Lord Baal’s sudden laughter was very jarring. It completely disrupted her speech. She turned to look upon the demon lord gravely, trying to hold her anger in check. She was unaccustomed to anyone interrupting her while she held court. Centuries-old vampires had died for lesser outbursts. Yet this was a supernatural being far more powerful than anyone she could command. Al she could do was glare. Baal could hardly have cared less. He turned to Lydia, who had peeled herself from his side to look at him curiously.

“Now I remember him!” Baal declared with great humor. He turned to Lydia with a wide, happy grin. “It turns out I’l receive some souls tonight after al !” “Master,” she blinked, “what—?” Baal had already turned from her to look upon Lorelei. She looked up at him with her eyes seething with hatred. “Dearest, you really picked yourself a winner! Obviously, I’d have preferred a Pol Pot or a Stalin. But as working stiffs go, your boy’s a real gem!” The crowd began to murmur. Anastacia looked behind her at Blackthorne, who promptly snapped his fingers at Spade. “Go see what that’s about,” he said. Spade drew his longsword and rushed down the stairway railing, leaping over the crowd dramatical y. “Ms. Black,” Stefan said sharply toward the crowd, “go with him.” “Do not!” Anastacia commanded. Ms. Black froze in her tracks as the Lady turned her icy glare at Stefan. “We will handle this.” “Never a lot of longevity there, though,” Baal mused. “Whenever he comes around again, I can count on a good couple of years of wicked souls coming my way in a bit of a rush, but then he goes and gets himself kil ed al over again.” “Master, no,” Lydia pleaded with him. “Tel me what’s going on! Don’t let this al fall apart now!” “Oh, don’t get so upset, Lydia,” he shrugged. “This is a charming distraction and al , but I’ve got what I really wanted.” He tugged at Lorelei’s chains again. “Besides, look at the numbers here. What do you really think will happen?” Lydia’s eyes narrowed. She turned from Baal and leapt off of the balcony, gliding on her demonic wings to the edge of the crowd. The succubus fol owed in the wake of Spade and Ms. Black, who had eventually rushed off despite Anastacia’s objections.

A bloodcurdling scream echoed from down a long hall way. Baal’s eyebrows shot up. He looked to Stefan with a mirthful grin. “Why, Lord Stefan!” he said. “I believe that was your redoubtable Mr. White joining Warren in an untimely end! Did you have him positioned down toward the basement entrance to effect some manner of shenanigans tonight?” * “Meant to be sneakier than that,” Alex grunted, shoving the robed man off of his sword. He felt so confident with the weapons in his hand, so sure of his skill s…and yet they weren’t exactly one hundred percent. Maybe it was the result of so many memories in conflict, or maybe it was his mind’s reflexive denial of so much of it. Then again, he figured, even if he really had lived al these lives—if that’s what they were—it wasn’t as if he was the same person. Alex was in fairly good shape, but he hadn’t exactly trained himself up for fighting. “They’l have heard that,” Diana said behind him. She had thrown on her pants and flannel shirt again before catching up, but nothing else. She hadn’t even bothered to button it. “Their numbers will be overwhelming. We must flee.” “You said we can’t even get out of the house while the spel is on it.” As he spoke, he sheathed the gladius and unslung the Thompson from his shoulder. “We can if we smash our way out. It will be difficult, but we just have to find a good spot.” “I’m not leaving without Lorelei.” Alex was already moving on. “The other demon? You can’t be serious.” “I love her.”

“She is a demon. She cannot feel love. You have been manipulated, and you know it. You must let this go, Alex. You cannot get her back from them. You will die trying.” “I’m good with that,” he growled, walking on without her. Something made him stop as he came to a corner. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but it was something about eastern France and preferring to be back in his tank and having to write a letter to Anderson’s mother about how he died in house-to-house fighting like an infantryman when they should’ve just been buttoned up in their Sherman… Alex scowled, shouldered the Thompson, and let fly a circular burst straight through the corner of the hall way ahead. There was a shriek of pain and a cry of surprise, and suddenly a long blade and a black trench coat were flying out from around the corner. Alex lunged to one side, hoping to evade the vampire, but he needn’t have bothered. Spade was crumbling to ashes even as he made his last, desperate lunge. There was someone with him. She was in a dark-toned pantsuit, with the sort of features that could fit al sorts of ethnic descriptions. Not wanting to take chances, Alex raised his gun and fired at her, but she had a wooden wand up before he pul ed the trigger. It was point-blank range; despite his awkward position on the floor, she should’ve been fil ed with lead. Instead, the woman waved her wand a second time, and suddenly Alex was heaved to his feet by nothing at al and then thrown through a door behind him. The room had been converted to a staging area for al manner of refreshments. Tables of champagne bottles, assorted liquors and hors d’ourves trays were everywhere. Alex crashed into a couple of them in his flight through the thin door. Ms. Black paused outside only long enough to seize Diana with the same spel and throw her far down the hall way behind her. The haggard young woman was flung with such force and momentum that she was sent tumbling further away even after she hit the floor. With that, the sorceress turned her attention back toward Alex. “So predictable,” Ms. Black smirked as she strode in. “Give a man a gun, he’l use it before anything else. Not so hard to ward yourself against bul ets—” The bottle that flew from inside the room was not something she expected. It smashed across her face, and as she

staggered back another one came right at her head to send her tumbling to the floor in the hall way. Alex scrambled to his feet, rushing to knock her out completely before she recovered. Then he realized Lydia was there, standing over the stumbling woman with murder in her eyes. The succubus’s mouth opened wide; Alex had just enough time to drop to the floor to avoid the gout of flame that roared out of it. He couldn’t, however, recover quickly enough to avoid her grasp. Lydia snatched him by the neck, heaving him up into the air with a vicious snarl. “I was going to be generous and give you the only sort of death a man could actually want.” “How ‘bout I not die at al ?” Alex managed to get out. Blood was running from her grip on his neck as the talons dug into the flesh around it. “It’s too late for that now. You’ve made far too much of a mess. Now you will only die in flames. Everyone will die in flames!” * “Not one of your negotiations have been handled in good faith,” Anastacia sneered at Lord Stefan. “What other side deals have you made with the demons? With others?” “Lady Anastacia, this does not become you,” Stefan replied darkly. “The Brotherhood and your people have coexisted in tension and even hostility in the past. My people are quite prepared to continue on doing so if necessary. Our dealings with Lord Baal and Mistress Lydia are our own business.” Blackthorne cleared his throat audibly. “What say you to that, Lord Baal?”

Stil watching the scene from his spot on the staircase with Lorelei restrained at his feet, Lord Baal had lost neither his amusement nor his composure. “I think I will say nothing and let this lovely bit of chaos play itself out.” On the floor below, the guests were growing more and more tense. The Brotherhood collectively backed up, closing ranks and hoping to open up space between themselves and the vampires, whose expressions had generally shifted from cool and measured hospitality to open suspicion and hunger. Molly was getting antsy. “Onyx?” Onyx still seemed to be concentrating on her divination. “Wait for it,” she replied steadily. In front of them, Mr. Woods turned to look at the pair suspiciously. “Wait for what, exactly?” * Taylor threw the SUV into gear. “On like Donkey Kong,” she confirmed for Drew. She lifted her foot up off of the clutch, pressed down on the accelerator, kept her eyes on the driveway, and quickly set to jamming a sturdy tree branch between the seat and the gas pedal. She finished just in time to throw the vehicle into second, and then promptly into third. The huge mansion rapidly became bigger and bigger in front of the windshield. Drew had the road flare out and was about to pul the cap off. “There!” he pointed. “Try to get right there!” “Got it!” Taylor shouted back. Her adrenaline was pumping fiercely. There were only a couple of seconds to go. Something big, white and horrifying leapt down from the sky directly onto the hood of the SUV. It smashed one huge,

clawed hand through the windshield, grabbing at Taylor. The monster seemed to flop and slip on the oil-and- gasoline-soaked hood of the vehicle, rendering its efforts clumsy and ineffective. Taylor threw herself against the door, narrowly avoiding its grip. “Out!” Drew yel ed, “Get out!” Even as he shouted, he put the AK right up to the bony, unnatural thing and pul ed the trigger. Bul ets sprayed out from the weapon, hitting the monster dead center and causing it to slip and falter. Its shoulder and part of one frightful wing fell into the cabin as the bul ets shook it off balance. Taylor didn’t need to be told twice. She shoved the door open and lunged out, trying to cover her head and tumble as best she had been taught. If she had gotten anything useful out of years of ridiculously dangerous high school cheerleading acrobatics, it was the ability to take a fall . The grass was lush and the ground was still soft and moist from recent rains, and she knew how to protect her head and absorb a fall . Just the same, it was rougher than anything she’d ever been through. Taylor rolled and came to a halt sprawled out in the grass. Drew wasn’t long in getting out. He let the rifle drop. Drew had one ugly, face to face look at the demon’s four red eyes glaring hatefully at him before he shoved the door open. The only thing left to do was tear off the cap of the road flare that had been in his lap. The demon roared. Part of Drew wanted nothing more than to curl up into a bal , but most of him knew just how counterproductive that would be. He tossed the sputtering road flare into the back seat and rolled out of the open door. Harrow saw al manner of flammable products and trash stuffed into the back of the vehicle. He couldn’t get control of it as it sped toward the mansion. The monster was quick-witted and powerful, but he didn’t have a clue of how to drive. The notion of turning the steering wheel of the speeding SUV never occurred to him. *

“We did not come to you defenseless,” Stefan said darkly. “Your numbers and power may be impressive, but the Brotherhood will never come into a den of wolves as mere sheep.” “I believe this conversation has gone far enough,” Lady Anastacia replied flatly. “Courtesy demands that I al ow you safe passage from this gathering. After this night, neither you nor your precious Brotherhood shall be received so cordial y. No mercy shall be shown to your holdings in the mortal realm. No shelter shall be found for you and yours in my lands.” The threats implied by her statement were unmistakable. “So it’s war, then?” “It would appear so,” the vampire nodded with cold grace. “I would tel you that the streets shall run red with your blood, but we will likely not be so wasteful.” Stefan inhaled, his posture stiffening. “Then as soon as Ms. Black, Mr. White and Warren have returned, we will take our leave.” “You will leave now, sir,” Blackthorne demanded. “And the wards you have placed upon my home will come down immediately.” The assembled vampires and sorcerers below mirrored the tense standoff. Everyone was ready to draw a weapon or cast a spel . No one wanted to make the first move, though. Once it began, no one could be quite sure where it would end. It was at that point that Molly spotted the headlights in the front window. “Onyx,” she said. Onyx touched her hand. “Almost the right time,” she said. Mol y’s eyes grew wide. “Oh, it’s time,” she hissed. Molly gripped Onyx’s hand as she lunged to one side, pulling Onyx with her in a rush that batted aside a vampire who had been angling for a position behind them.