Natural Consequences (29 page)

Nothing.

“Son of a bitch, seriously?” she sighed. It was at least as humbling a reminder of her limitations as the claws and teeth of the werewolves. She was an angel, and holder of dominion over the city, but she wasn’t omnipotent. Being super obnoxious didn’t make her super loud.

She’d have to resort to more obvious measures.

White light from her halo spread and intensified. Rachel illuminated every crack and corner of the tunnel, drowning out shadows and momentarily blinding anyone that looked directly toward her. Some shielded their eyes with their forearms; others couldn’t help but turn away. The fighting quickly ground to a halt.

“Are we all listening now?” Rachel demanded loudly. The glare of her halo diminished. She strode to the center of the mess, where a small pile of struggling vampires and werewolves separated and crawled away from her in opposite directions.

No one spoke. Not a body came toward her. Weapons remained in hand, claws and teeth waited to sink into flesh once again, but no one moved. She seemed small and innocent compared to the horde of monsters and vicious undead, but they all backed away in trepidation.

“So
, hi. I’m Rachel,” the angel began, “and I watch over this city. And the surrounding area, so don’t try to get technical with me about suburbs or some bullshit like that.”

She heard a hiss from one side. Rachel turned her head to find the small Japanese vampire crouching low, still looming over the body of the werewolf she’d just slain. She clutched her daggers menacingly. “One would not expect an angel to bleed,” she observed.

“Indeed,” said Wentworth, who lurked several yards away behind a pair of bodyguards with swords drawn. “You strike an impressive visage, ‘Rachel,’ but I see nothing that could not be duplicated through mortal magic. Were you a genuine servant of Heaven, would not my own kind flee or crumble to ash in your presence?”

“Oh, whatthefuckever, dude,” Rachel sighed. She blew at a lock of hair that dangled in her face, but it settled right back where it had been. “Don’t
buy into everything you read about yourself on the fuckin’ internet.”

Heads turned. “You don’t sound like an angel,” someone said.

“Yeah, I get that a lot. Believe what you want.”

“I believe you’re one sort of supernatural creature or another,” replied Wentworth, “and you have just laid claim to this city. Presumably you wish to lodge that claim with us? And the mongrels, I would guess?” Wolfish snarls answered his last comment, but the vampire paid them no mind. His attention remained focused on the newcomer. “You seek to treat with us? What is your business?”

Rachel nodded. “Here’s my offer:
Get the fuck out
.”

“Rend,” growled a voice no human throat could produce. Rachel’s eyes flicked to her left, where she saw a looming tower of brown fur and angry, blood-stained teeth move behind other forms.
A bald patch on the beast’s forehead gave a clue as to which one it was. The vampires in the foreground spread out and away from the monster; its packmates closed in. “Tear. Eat.”

“Surprised you can say that much with a mouth like that,” Rachel frowned.

The brown werewolf turned its head toward Wentworth, gestured toward him and then itself. “Hold,” the monster managed to say, and then pointed with one clawed hand at the angel. “Kill.”

Wentworth nodded darkly. “Agreed,” he said.

Guns were locked and loaded. Fighters shifted into position. Rachel sighed and rolled her eyes. “Godless sonsabitches.”

Like Alex before her, Rachel found herself faced with a mob of attackers rushing
in from several directions. Unlike her lover, she was equipped to deal with it. The angel stepped into the oncoming assault with a broad swing of her sword. Bodies ignited and burned in its wake.

Amber watched with awe as the wave of monsters broke against Rachel and her blade. The angel left flaming men, women and monsters strewn in her path. She grabbed the nearest vampire with her free hand and hoisted him up as a shield against the teeth and claws of the werew
olf behind him, then shoved his mangled body forward to knock the monster off its feet.

The monsters could hurt the angel—that much was plain from the blows she absorbed and the blood drawn by claws, guns and blades—but on the whole, she
gave much better than she got.

Jason didn’t bother to watch. He had hoped Rachel could intimidate the bad guys into letting them go, but once things descended back into violence he couldn’t spare her much attention. “Alex!” he urged, snapping his fingers and waving his hand in his friend’s face. “Alex, you with me, bro? We gotta bounce!”

Judging by the look in his eyes, Jason figured Alex could barely track his surroundings. He still had the short sword firmly in his grip, but gave few other signs of lucidity. Jason grabbed his shoulders and heaved him up.

“Rachel?”
Alex asked.

“Yeah, Rachel’s here
. She’s holdin’ the bad guys off,” Jason said. He made sure Alex could stand before letting him go. “Amber, you ready?” he asked, then saw her watching Rachel in awe. “Amber! C’mon, we gotta go!”

“Right!” Amber blinked and turned. “Right—no!” She brought up her gun toward the two young men and fired.

Her bullets flew past them into the three men who rushed up from behind them bearing guns of their own. One went down quickly, and then the other. Not every dangerous man down here was some crazed supernatural. The third, dressed in simple leather and denim, all but ignored the bullets that tore through him.

He didn’t ignore the sword that came for his face
as Alex snapped out of his reverie and charged in. Rather than shoot, the vampire brought his AK-47 up to block the blade. He struck back with his elbow, clocking Alex in the shoulder, but the fury of Alex’s assault left the vampire no recovery time. Alex dropped low and slashed deep into the vampire’s leg, cutting through muscles and tendons.

Amber kept her gun on the vampire, but with Alex in the way she couldn’t get a clear shot. The young man had his free hand on the assault rifle then, grabbing it and turning it away in the sort of control move
Amber learned at the academy—only no one in her class ever worked with swords. She kept them covered, ready to unload on the vampire, but in the end it wasn’t necessary.

Before she knew it, Jason stepped in with a gun claimed from the vampire’s fallen mortal companions. Heedless of the dangers of getting mixed up between Alex, his sword and the vampire’s savage strength, Jason jammed the pistol against the vampire’s head and pulled the trigger. Their foe jerked in reaction as the bullet passed through his skull.

It broke up the melee. Jason trained the gun on his victim again, still well within arm’s reach, and fired. He let loose with a third bullet just to be sure. When the vampire fell, Alex stepped in and started hacking at his neck with the sword.

Amber looked down the hallway, eyes sweeping left and then right. The way out was clear. The other direction showed nothing but a fierce fight between an angel and an impromptu alliance that
might crumble at any second—though neither of its factions would hesitate to tie up mortal loose ends.

“Okay, we’re good,” Jason said, snatching up a new gun just for good measure as Alex finished off the vampire. “We ready?”

“Go,” Alex said. He turned back toward the fight and took a step forward.

Amber
opened her mouth to object, but Jason did her one better. He tackled Alex to the ground. In light of all she’d just seen, she found that as crazy as the monsters deciding to fight Rachel.

“Let me go!” demanded Alex. He put his blade to Jason’s neck.

“No! Alex, listen!” Jason countered forcefully. “Bad ass angel back there, right? Mere mortals here. Don’t get in her way.”

“I’ll have their heads!” Alex snarled.

Jason saw the rage in his friend’s eyes. He ignored the sword hovering close to his throat. “Alex, it’s me, alright? It’s Jason! I don’t care who the fuck is in your head tellin’ you whose ass to kick right now. You are Alex Carlisle and we been friends since grade school! You are not gonna stab me, so put the fuckin’ sword down, bro!”

Alex wavered. His anger remained, but the blade turned an inch or two away. He pushed Jason back, but the other young man held on. “Get out of here,” he growled, “I’ll keep them off your back.”

“Your girl’s doin’ that. Alex, you do
not
get to check out on me here. Not after all this bullshit.” He thought quickly for a winning argument and swallowed hard. “Or are you just gonna leave us behind in this mess? Me and Amber, huh? Leave your people behind in a fight?”

Alex glanced toward
the battle, then at Jason again and over his shoulder at the worried young woman in green fatigues with the pistol. “No,” he grunted.

“Then get us out of here, soldier,” Jason barked. He released Alex and pointed down the broad hallway, away from the fighting. “Exit’s that way.”

Alex nodded. “Fine,” he said, “let’s go.”

Amber threw a questioning glance at Jason. He opened his mouth to speak and suddenly had a critical thought. “Shit! Our stuff!” he blurted.
Jason quickly spun around, scanning the debris and bodies between them and the brawl up ahead. “There!” he snapped and ran off.

“Hey, get back here!” Amber demanded
.

Jason crouched down beside a fallen body and the remains of a couple of vampires, now just dresses filled with ashes. Amber watched warily as he patted down the lifeless woman in white jeans and a leather jacket. She didn’t immediately recognize her until her head turned to one side and Amber saw the sugar skull make-up on her face.

“Phone, phone, wallet,” Jason muttered, quickly pulling items from her jacket pockets and placing them in his own. “Wallet, wallet… Dammit, where is it?”

“You wanted to flee,” reminded Alex, suddenly speaking with a strange accent, “and now you wish to remain and loot the fallen?”

“Jason, we don’t have time for this!” pressed Amber.

“We don’t want them getting into our business later, either,” Jason argued as he searched
. “Maybe they could still find us anyway, but there’s no reason to make it easy for—phone!” he cried out as he found Amber’s plain black piece.

Alex released the magazine from his AK to check its capacity, then locked and loaded once more. His movements seemed completely proficient. The sword now hung on the cotton belt of his bathrobe, re-tied in a serious knot to keep it firm.

“I’m on point,” Alex said, strangely affecting yet another new accent. “Don’t bunch up, don’t talk. Charlie don’t need help findin’ us.” With that, he turned and hustled down the hall.

Jason turned his attention to Amber, only to find a demanding look on h
er face. The young man just shrugged and pointed one finger toward his own ear, twirling it quickly. “He kinda gets, like, ‘Nam flashbacks an’ shit, right?” he huffed. “We don’t talk about it much.” The young man wavered under Amber’s disbelieving glare. “I try to respect his privacy, y’know?”

The vampires got the point before too long. Rachel laid waste to
every challenger—usually several at a time, as they swiftly realized none of them could stand against her alone. Their natural vulnerability to fire was enough to deter most of them, but even those who thought they might avoid her sword soon found that her strength and dirty tactics provided formidable additional threats.

The werewolves were another matter entirely. As the vampires withdrew from the fight, the furry monsters redoubled their efforts.
Their bloodlust only grew with every passing second. Rachel dodged one by leaping up to stand atop its shoulders, flipping forward to slash her sword up along its spine before coming to ground, and then felt one of the werewolves catch her wing in its claws and tug roughly.

Typically, Rachel had to be immaterial or not; she couldn’t have it both ways, couldn’t interact with the physical world and let it pass through her at the same time. The wings of the angels and their demon counterparts were usually the exception to that rule, but as she was lifted
off her feet, flung sideways and slammed into a wall, she learned that the werewolves apparently had enough of the touch of Hell in them to allow for such contact.

They could also hurt her. Rachel had gone toe-to-toe with demons of considerably greater strength and come away victorious, but she’d never faced fifteen such foes. As she bounced
off the wall and hit the floor face first, Rachel understood why the werewolves hadn’t been hunted down and eradicated long ago. Not only were they difficult to find, but it turned out that werewolves—at least in groups—could put up a real fight.

As she picked herself up off the floor, she found the werewolves closing in for another coordinated attack. They didn’t communicate as far as she could tell, and probably didn’t have to. Predatory instinct made up for that.

Still, these were not just predators. They were people, too, or at least they had been once upon a time. Rachel scanned the group until she found the large brown one with the bald spot. That one seemed to be the leader.

Rachel pointed to her and warned the others,
“She’s gonna cost you assholes everything.” She kept her sword at the ready, still up for the fight despite being battered and bruised. Her confidence never wavered. “You know that, right? Shit creek without a paddle for any of you, and she’s still not gonna get what she wants for it.”