Life in Shadows (31 page)

“You’ll
learn, though,” promised Karma, looming over him with the bat in her hands.
“We’ll keep you alive until we’ve fixed everything you’ve wrecked. Alive and
just conscious enough to wish you weren’t.” She jabbed his side with the bat.
“And then the real fun begins. I can’t wait to see who gets put in that cute
little body of—”

She
stopped cold. Without giving Alex any clue or hint as to why, Karma looked up
at Chance in alarm. He saw the other demon look back at her and then glance
around the bar with similar concern. “The wards,” said Chance.

“Lester!”
Karma shouted. She dropped the bat and rushed to a set of stairs that rose from
a spot near the entrance to the main hall. The steps seemed to lead to a
balcony overlooking the bar, but Alex didn’t get much more of a look than that.
He had another angry woman in his face already.

“Who
are you?” Chance demanded with a growl. She still stood on the open side of the
counter, holding his arms back over his head. “Who are you with?”

Lifting
his legs, Alex found he could just barely touch the main rack behind the bar
from where she held him on his back. Swinging himself up into a curl seemed
dumb. Chance easily outmatched him in physical strength and durability. He’d
lose that wrestling match. Instead, Alex did the only productive thing he
could: he kicked the rack hard once, then again, knocking loose more bottles
and finally bringing one of the shelves tumbling down.

It
made little difference where he lay. The bottles that fell on the burning end
of the bar made much more of an impact on their situation. Flames roared to
life as rum and other accelerants crashed down and spread across the counter.
If the heat bothered Alex before, it genuinely hurt now. Demon or not, Chance
flinched at the sudden change in circumstances, tugging Alex along with her and
inadvertently pulling him onto his side. Alex rolled the rest of the way over,
bringing his arms into a more natural angle and giving him the counter as a
brace. With all his strength, Alex pulled his wrists back hard and tugged
Chance face first into the counter.

She
let go of one hand. Alex used it to punch her cheek, but her glare reminded him
how poorly that worked. Then he jammed his thumb in her eye. The nastier tactic
worked out much better for him. Chance jerked back with a grunt, slapping his
hand away and releasing his other wrist.

Alex
tumbled to the floor behind the bar. He hit his back on the cabinet behind him,
finding himself sitting in a cramped stretch of wet floor and a lot of broken
glass. He looked up to see Chance staring daggers at him from over the counter.
“You still want to fight?”

He
coughed from the smoke, shuffling further from the flames to escape the heat.
“Sure,” he croaked. “As long as I don’t have to watch your shitty dancing.”

Snarling,
Chance rose to climb up over the bar. Then Karma’s bloodied body came crashing
down onto the counter between them, knocking Chance back out of sight. Karma
rolled off to the other side, too. Alex covered his mouth with his forearm and
coughed, finding it hard to breathe so close to the fire. Before he could
shuffle away, though, another woman came down the counter from high above. This
one stuck the landing, with broad, leathery wings sprouting right through her
leather coat. Her demon’s tail thrashed left and right in quick, angry motions.
Flames licked up at one of her boots and her leg. She didn’t react at all to
the heat.

“Your
master is on his way back to Hell,” said Lorelei. “Keep fighting and you will
join him.”

Alex
picked himself up off the floor, crouched over and haggard but on his feet in
time to gauge the enemy’s reactions. Karma was back up to her hands and knees
by then. Though she spit black blood and bore scars from Lorelei’s talons, she
wasn’t down for the count. If the other women recognized Lorelei, it made
little difference.

Destiny
seemed to rally in defiance of her wounds from the mirror. “Sammael won’t
forgive us if we let them go,” she warned the others.

Lorelei
tilted her head. “A fair point,” she conceded, and then dove off the bar to
tackle Chance into the nearest table and chairs. They landed with a loud crash
as wood snapped and glasses fell. Destiny rushed into the mess before either of
the other combatants regained their footing. She kicked Lorelei hard across the
temple as the succubus rose. Chance drove a punch straight into Lorelei’s gut,
but the succubus swatted her away with a closed fist. The other temptress took
advantage of the distraction, getting behind Lorelei to hook her arms under wings
and shoulders alike.

Wrestling
moves turned out very differently when both combatants had sharp talons. Things
got bloody fast for everyone involved. The scene illustrated for Alex why
Lorelei wanted to keep their enemies separated. Their slender builds belied
their unnatural strength. He saw far less technique than vicious brawling.
Lorelei’s greater overall power meant less when faced with two opponents, and
Alex knew a third temptress still lurked on the other side of the bar.

He
staggered away from the spreading flames, coughing with every other step. The
big, open showroom offered plenty of overhead space for the smoke to spread,
but it would fill up quickly and then Alex would have far more trouble
breathing. He needed to get out soon. He also needed to help Lorelei—and for
that, he’d need a weapon. A couple of bottles remained on the counter. His bat
lay somewhere on the other side. Alex climbed over the side to find it.

Instead,
he found Karma. The beautiful, voluptuous dancer from the stage now bled from
deep gashes across her chest and down her arms. More blood seeped from her
mouth. All of it looked unnaturally dark and thick, but that meant less to Alex
than the savage murder in her snarl and her eyes.
Don’t try to match her
,
Alex thought with alarm as she came at him.
She’s shorter but way stronger.

His
body followed the mental warning. He grabbed her leading wrist and turned,
kicking back low with one foot so he could throw her over his leg. Karma went
falling past him. Alex didn’t stop to see her hit the floor, knowing he’d
probably only pissed her off even more. He stuck to his priorities: find a
weapon, help Lorelei, get the hell out.

The
bat was nowhere in sight. Amid the debris on the counter, only a foot away from
the flames, lay one last unbroken bottle of rum.

“Fucking!
Bitch!” Chance raged, punctuating each word with a blow against Lorelei. She
had to be careful not to hit Destiny, who clung to the barest hold on their
opponent’s arms, but she got her licks in. “All of you stuck-up succubae
deserve—oof!” She stepped back with the impact of Lorelei’s boot in her gut.

“Don’t
screw around!” yelled Destiny, who then yelped as her grip on Lorelei faltered.
The stronger woman wrenched one arm free and then spun around the other way to
slash at Destiny’s neck with her talons. The dancer got her shoulder up in time
to take the blow there instead of in her throat and retaliated in kind, forcing
Lorelei to back up and block rather than press her attack. Lorelei stumbled
over debris from the broken furniture. Destiny pounced, once more tangling up
one of Lorelei’s arms as she fell to one knee. This time, Destiny also managed
to yank down hard on Lorelei’s hair to expose her neck. The hold left both of
her hands occupied, but Destiny wasn’t in this alone.  “Now!” she demanded.

“On
it,” promised Chance. She darted in with her talons extended, but never got
there. Alex swept in from the side, coming between Chance and her target with a
downward swing of his bottle. Though she looked up reflexively, Chance didn’t
raise her hands in time to block before it crashed into her face. Instantly
soaked and annoyed, Chance tore into his abdomen. Alex felt her talons rake
through him, one finger scraping his lowest rib while the others dug lower. He
screamed in pain as he collapsed.

Chance
saw the shock and fear in Lorelei’s face. She didn’t stop to question such
emotions in a fellow demon’s eyes. She simply lifted one finger to her
rum-soaked face to lick the blood from it in a final taunt. It cost her dearly.

Though
Lorelei could not muster up a full blast of flame, she could cough out a slight
burst. It lasted only an eyeblink, perhaps two, but the rum helped. Chance’s
head, shoulders, and chest caught fire instantly. She didn’t react well. The
temptress shrieked and stumbled back, her supernatural resilience quickly
overcome.

“Oh
shit,” blurted Destiny.

“Flames,”
grunted Lorelei. “Right.”

The
other temptress almost let go of her in time. Lorelei grabbed Destiny’s leg and
a handful of hair at the scalp, hoisting her upward and then rushing for the
burning bar at full speed. Destiny had enough time to cry out in protest before
Lorelei slammed her down through the flaming wreckage with all her might. The
bar collapsed under the impact. Lorelei delivered a final, bone-crunching stomp
to keep Destiny down as the temptress howled in agony. Chance kept screaming,
too, blindly staggering into Lorelei’s reach long enough for the succubus to
rake her throat open with her talons. Overcome with pain and panic, Chance
thrashed around and stumbled away. She immediately lost Lorelei’s interest.

When
she turned again, Lorelei saw one remaining foe. Karma moved in to finish off
the wounded mortal struggling to rise from the floor until she caught Lorelei’s
eye. The last temptress needed no further threat than that single gaze. Lorelei
rushed at her with a bestial growl. As it turned out, the look in her eyes had
already done the trick. Karma turned and fled rather than face the succubus
again.

Doubled
over in pain and fighting for air, Alex missed most of the battle’s end. He
managed to open his eyes in time to see Chance drop. That marked progress. Now
he had to try moving. He lay on his side clutching the wound, fairly certain
Chance had torn open something vital in his guts. Blood spilled out between his
fingers as he tried to hold everything together. His lungs weren’t doing so
great, either. Down on the floor, he escaped the worst of the smoke, but he
still coughed with every weak, shallow breath. He had to get out of here before
he suffocated. Though he might still be screwed even once outside, fighting for
clean air beat fighting for this.

He
made it to his knees with his eyes watering and his limbs feeling weak. His
predicament recalled the fear and anger he felt at the end of earlier lives.
He’d always died by violence before. The memories were never even close to
complete, but that detail had come through loud and clear.

“Alex!”
Lorelei knelt beside him. He felt her arms around his. Her hair fell across his
shoulders. It meant the world to him. “How badly are you hurt?”

Though
he tried to respond, all he could manage was a rasping breath and a cough. He
looked to her through watering eyes and mouthed out, “Bad,” but no sound came.

Lorelei
bore numerous wounds, too. Her demonic visage was gone. Alex saw her usual
complexion, not so flawless now with all the soot and open cuts. He didn’t see
horns or wings. Instead, he saw worried, frightened eyes. He also saw spreading
flames behind her. Carefully, Lorelei picked him up off the floor to carry him
from the room as he coughed.

“Showoff,”
he managed.

She
carried him to the foyer, where they found more gathering smoke but no other
dangers. None of the staff or guests remained. “I do not know how to treat
this,” said Lorelei as she walked with him. “I never had reason to learn before
now.”

“S’okay,”
Alex rasped.

“The
best I can do is call an ambulance unless we can find—”

The
front doors flew open—or, more accurately, flew off their hinges as a body
crashed straight through them. She landed a few yards past Lorelei and Alex,
struggling to rise and escape from the blur of white light and flames that
pursued her.

“Sloppy
fucking cunt-captain—” ranted the feminine voice of the glowing figure.

“Rachel!”
Lorelei snapped.

“No!”
Karma retorted, lashing out defiantly with her talons.

The
angel was already on her. She kicked Karma hard enough to lift her off the
floor, knocking her against one wall of the foyer. “—bitch ass out of my
fucking—”

“Rachel!”
Lorelei shouted again. She stood on the other side of the broken doors now on
her way to the cleaner air of the night outside. “Alex is hurt!”

The
lithe, blonde angel paused in her assault for only a heartbeat to snap a look
back over her shoulder. After only one glance, she returned to her opponent. “Nevermind,”
she told Karma before she swung the flaming sword in her hand up into the
temptress, cutting into her midsection and up through her chest. Karma let out
a final scream before she collapsed. Faint wisps of green colored the smoke
that rose from her smoldering body.

It
was all Rachel needed to see to confirm Karma’s demise. She spun around to join
the pair at the club’s doorstep. Her flaming blade vanished. “Oh jeez what
happened? Put him down,” the angel instructed, still speaking at a mile a minute.

Alex
felt better the moment Rachel put her hands on him. Her touch chased the smoke
from his lungs. Though Lorelei bent at the knees to set him down, he discovered
he could stand as long as Rachel had her hands on him. He essentially went from
one woman’s arms to the other’s. “Guts,” he said as he leaned into a hug with
the angel. “Feels like it’s really bad.”