Natural Consequences (30 page)

The lead werewolf growled. Rachel
glanced back to confirm that Alex, Jason and Amber were long gone. Her eyes turned back on Diana. “You can’t have him.” She smirked a bit as Diana took an angry step forward. “It’s not ‘cause you’re furry. It’s not even because you aren’t human. It’s ‘cause you’re such a psycho cunt.”

Diana reared back and howled. Several of the others did,
too, which Rachel took for a final group psych-up before charging—but then one of the werewolves to her left rushed in just as the howl began. She was ready for it, sword up and level to impale the monster as it closed. With that, Rachel decided to play her trump card.

Guardian angels had the strength to defend their charges. Those who held Dominion carried the power to defend their cities. Without that strength, Rachel might not have survived this long into the fight. Without mortal witnesses, she could
draw upon all might the Hosts had invested in her.

The werewolf on her sword all but exploded as flames burst from his body. The pommel of Rachel’s weapon sent beams of light out in every direction. Clouds of fire followed, growing slowly at first but quickly wafting through the tunnel. Most of her opponents wisely fled. Those who did not died where they stood, engulfed in divine flame and wrath.

Further down the hallway, a lone figure in ash-stained white jeans and a black leather jacket stirred. The first thing she felt was a deep, almost painful thirst. She felt an all-encompassing coldness in her body, from fingers to toes, and if it wasn’t uncomfortable it was still disconcerting.
She felt thirsty.

The
thirst had to be obeyed. The thirst, beyond all things. She knew that. She needed to drink.

Rosario’s dead eyes fluttered open for the first time. She needed to drink. She looked around for something—some
one
, she knew instinctively—to feed upon. She needed to drink.

Then she saw the great, expanding ball of fire not far down the tunnel, and she came to understand another deep, overriding need as she scrambled to her feet and
threw herself over the rails to the floor below.

They never saw him coming.

The escalators leading to and from
the street above were separated by a wide staircase between them. The entrance was mostly enclosed by the front façade of a department store. The overhang of the department store’s second floor and the partial enclosure of its walls provided partial shelter. Two men in police uniforms guarded the top of the stairs.

He hugged the corner at the base of the stairs and held up an open palm to
signal his companions to wait. Luckily, the enemy hadn’t seen him peek around the corner. Now he had to watch their shadows against the wall of the stairway and wait for an opening.

Shooting these guys with his AK did
n’t seem like a viable option. That would give away their position to anyone else patrolling the street. He’d have to take them both out quietly. For all he knew, a dozen more such enemies lingered just out of sight upstairs, but he’d have to take the chance.

His slippers made too much noise, he figured, so he left them behind and waited for his chan
ce on the cold concrete. The sentries looked outward, suggesting they served to deter anyone on the outside from coming in rather than staying in place to keep anyone inside.

One moved out of sight. The other one followed.

Alex leapt up the stairs, clearing three or four at a time in his rush. He was in it now, nothing for it but to push through and hope Charlie didn’t waste him.

The first of the men in the police uniforms appeared again just as Alex reached the top of the stairs. He caught a brutal buttstroke from the young man’s rifle across his head. Moving as he’d been trained, Alex followed up by thrusting the butt of his rifle forward again on his victim’s face, knocking him to the ground. Then he spun and crouched, assault rifle trained on the second enemy before
the guard had his gun out.

“Hands up
, cracker. Now!” Alex hissed. He saw compliance and said, “Step back into here. Slow. Closer.” He could hear Jason and Amber hurrying up the stairs after him. Emergency tape and no entry signs blocked the entrance to the bus tunnel. Alex gestured to the stairs. “Grab your buddy’s ankles and drag him in with you. Steady, motherfucker, don’t waste my time.”

“Ohmygod,
we’re fighting cops?” Jason blinked.

“Listen, kid,” the second sentry began as he obeyed Alex’s instructions, “you don’t know—“

“Wait, shut up,” interrupted Jason. “Real cops would’ve gone in to check out all that noise from downstairs, right? Wouldn’t they?”

Amber frowned and nodded. “Yeah, they would,” she agreed, “but that doesn’t mean… oh, man.” Her mind raced. Monsters and angels and now assaulting men in uniform. It was way too easy to get on board this crazy train. She shook her head. “They might be fake uniforms or they might be the real thing on the take, but we can’t just… Alex?” she asked. “You okay?”

“Long as the honky don’t do nothin’ stupid, he lives through this,” Alex answered curtly. Once again, his diction and accent had changed. He kept his rifle trained on his prisoner.

Everyone else blinked. “Honky?” Jason asked.

“Whatever, man,” grunted Alex.

“Hands up in the open,” Jason said. “He’s right. We’re not into killing and we’re not into kidnapping, so if you cooperate you both go home tonight. But you move one inch and he
’ll shoot you.”

The prisoner
faced a crazed young man in the torn, bloody bathrobe, with a sword in his belt and a gun in his hands. He made the obvious choice. “Anything you say.”

Jason claimed
the man’s gun, then pulled the handcuffs out of his belt pouch and put them to use. Seconds later, the other sentry was similarly trussed up. Both sat on the stairs, though the one whose head Alex treated so roughly wasn’t exactly upright.

Satisfied that neither of her companions were about to commit a murder, Amber kept watch. She made note of the badge numbers in front of her. “Can’t say this is a good environment
for interrogating these assholes,” she said, then bit her lip and hoped her comment hadn’t revealed too much.

“No, probably not,” Jason agreed.

With their prisoners sitting several steps below them both and facing the other way, Jason took another quick look at his phone. Nobody had answered his emergency text yet. “Dammit,” he hissed. He poked his head up to see a deserted street. “We can’t go back to the hotel for my car. They found us there in the first place, so they might still have people watching the party. Plus the first cop that sees us on the street is gonna arrest us on the spot… fuck.”

“They’ll only stop us for the guns,” Amber reminded him. “We could just
hide them and walk a few blocks. It’s Halloween, who’s gonna care how we look?”

Jason shook his head. “Your costume is enough reason to stop you ‘
cause you’ll look like you
might
have a gun. And where’d you learn to shoot like that?”

“Hey,
I told you, father-daughter bonding,” Amber countered. “If anyone has a lot of questions to answer, it’s you two.”

“No, no, fair enough,” he replied, holding up his hands. He glanced at the two prisoners and sighed. His eyes flicked to Alex. “How you doin’?”

Alex blinked hard and nodded, his weapon still on their two prisoners. Fresh air and a moment to breathe seemed to reduce his tension. “Getting there,” he mumbled, then swallowed. “Familiar sights help. The street and stuff,” he added, gesturing up a bit. “Modern clothes. The cop uniforms. It helps. I’m sorry. I was confused. I’m still confused.” He paused. “I might start blubbering in a minute, too. Trying to hold it together.”

“Don’t worry about it,
man,” Jason said. “We got clear and Rachel took care of business. I’m sure she’s fine,” he added quickly. “She could leave that fight anytime she wanted, right?”

“Alex,” ventured Amber, “is Rachel… is Rachel really an angel?”

He didn’t answer at first, but then he nodded. “Yes. I’m not supposed to tell anyone, but you saw.” His words came out slowly. Foreign urges and memories still echoed through his brain, telling him that it was crazy to hold a gun on police officers, and that this was war and nothing could be taken for granted, and that fleeing before Bjorn and Unferth lay dead in the snow was intolerable. He blinked all that away. He shouldn’t tell Amber any of this, but talking about his life—his real life, not the memories of old ones—seemed to help.

“Yes. She’s an angel.” He kept his voice low.

“And she’s your girlfriend?” Amber asked gently.

“Yeah,” Alex nodded. He let in a deep breath, which shook on its way back out of him. “Rachel and Lorelei are both my girlfriends. Those were really vampires and werewolves
. They were looking for me.” He inhaled once more and blinked something back. “This wasn’t Jason’s fault at all. You shouldn’t blame him. Only thing he ever did wrong was stick by me and save my life. Again.”

Jason fiddled with his phone.
“Like you wouldn’t do the same?”

“If Rachel’s an angel,” Amber continued, realizing how shaky Alex had become in the last few seconds, “is Lorelei one, too?”

“No,” Alex answered, shaking his head again.

“
That guy said she’s a demon. Is that true?” He didn’t answer. Amber tried again. “Is she normal? I mean, human?”

“No.”

Waiting a beat to see if Alex would volunteer the details, Amber finally asked, “What is Lorelei?”

“Awesome!” blurted Jason. He hit the answer button on his phone and put it to his ear. “Lorelei? Yeah, Alex is here with me and Amber. We’re okay. Rachel came to the rescue but we’re on our own now. We’re at the entrance of the bus tunnel on Pine Street, between the malls.” He fell silent, then looked at his companions with obvious relief. “Looks like we’ve got a ride.”

* * *

“Gonna take forever for them to dig our cars out of this, even with the valet parking,” Molly grumbled as she and Onyx followed Lorelei to the garage.

“I’ve taken that into account,” Lorelei said. She scanned the garage entrance for threats or signs of trouble. Instead, she only saw a pair of bored-looking valets standing near a podium-style desk.

That a knockout like her would walk brazenly out into the cold of the garage in little more than tall boots and a bikini already made
for a highlight of their night. Yet when Lorelei reached them, her face full of purpose and two fingers slipping into the side of her top, the two valets—now standing straight and perking up with interest—she put a whole new twist on things.

“This is my ticket. It’s for the white Lexus in space 131. My friends here need their car as well.
This,” she said, producing several folded-up bills, “is a six hundred dollar tip. Every minute we wait for our cars will reduce this tip by one hundred dollars. You understand?”

“Y-yes!” blinked one of the valets. The other was smarter, and didn’t waste time on idle conversation; he simply snatched the keys for Lorelei’s car off the back side of the desk and took off running.

Lorelei smiled crisply at the remaining valet as Onyx fished her ticket out of her small leather belt pouch. “Forgive my curt manners. We’re in a hurry.”

“N-no problem!” the man said. He grabbed the ticket from Onyx and immediately shuffled through the rack of keys for the corresponding tag. He knocked more than a few to the ground, but couldn’t have cared less. In seconds, he was gone.

Onyx pursed her lips. “Is this why you insisted on springing for valet parking on top of the tickets?”

“I’ve learned to treat my friends well,” Lorelei said, turning her attention back to her phone, “
and to prepare for emergencies. Please keep an eye out. We don’t know who else might be on the prowl tonight.”

The dark-haired witch gave a little nod, but said nothing more. She took Lorelei’s meaning perfectly and turned her attention to their surroundings. Molly stood
close, tense and ready to lash out at the first threat to appear.

“Fun party while it lasted,”
Molly muttered.

* * *

“I have four suspects, all under arrest under my authority. We need to keep them separate and isolated. You will remember that this entire matter is top secret. Do you understand?” Hauser expected the guard at the front desk to respond with a snappy “Yes, sir.” When he didn’t hear it, his eyes turned back from scanning the hallway for witnesses to the sentry.

The grey-haired guard’s attention was less on the ID and badge presented by Hauser and more on the agent in the Spider-Man costume, also presenting badge and ID, standing directly behind him. They were the only people in the otherwise completely quiet and empty lobby.

“Wake up!” Hauser barked. “I don’t care if all you ever see walk through these doors are Treasury lawyers and their secretaries. You are a sworn Federal officer and you will comply with interagency authority, you got me?”

“Yes, sir!”
blurted the guard.

Keeley sighed and folded up his ID wallet. He moved to stow it on his person, and then remembered for the fourteenth time tonight that his superhero costume didn’t have any pockets. “I always hate going outside the Bureau f
or things like this,” he sighed, watching the desk guard shuffle away.

“Well, you do look ridiculous, Paul,” Hauser grunted.

Keeley blinked in shock. Hauser’s tone conveyed no sense of self-awareness; Paul couldn’t tell if his comrade was trying to be funny or not. He bit back his response in favor of staying on task. “I meant for custody and material support,” he grumbled. “I figured Treasury would have someone more senior than a uniformed guard pushing retirement age here to meet us when you called ahead.”

“They’ll have someone here soon enough,” Hauser shrugged. “Beggars can’t be choosers. I’m not ready to trust the local Bureau office or the local cops yet, so this is what we’ve got
for tonight. We’ll need a better location right away. I’m going out to check on our guests. Wait here for the desk jockey.”

“Why can’t you wait for him?”

Hauser looked back over his shoulder with a disdainful frown. “You wanna go outside dressed like that?” he asked before he passed through the door and out into alley behind the Treasury building. A car, an unmarked Bureau van and a commandeered suspects’ van waited nearby, along with several uniformed guards with assault rifles and his own agents. The car and Bureau van each had a single suspect inside. The suspects’ ride held two more—their third buddy already in an emergency room under Bridger’s supervision—along with a plastic bag of ashes and a burnt-up zoot suit.

“We doing okay out here?” he asked as Colleen and
Matt stepped up to meet him. “Any troubles?”

“The Hispanics aren’t giving any tr
ouble,” Colleen answered, “but that might be more about their concussions than anything else. The other two are sitting quiet and waiting.” She paused before she added, “Can’t say I’m crazy about bagging their heads like they’re terrorists.”

“They’ll have more rights than terrorists get if and when they’re indicted,” grunted Hauser.