Natural Consequences (36 page)

“That’s not—Lorelei, I didn’t even have time to process anything. I’m not omniscient. You were standing right there and I was just catching on
. I couldn’t say anything in front of—!” She stopped and turned to look at Alex. “Oh, fuck, you’re already figuring shit out, aren’t you?”

“Was this something that came up at the party?” Alex asked.

“For fuck’s sake, Alex, can’t you just be dumb for a couple minutes?” Rachel pleaded. She stood up. “And put some pants or a blanket on or something, you’ve been driving me nuts with that thing all night. Both of you. I’m out of my mind right now and you’re both still buck naked.”

Blushing, Alex looked back to Lorelei, who handed him a pillow without comment. Her eyes went back to Rachel as he put the pillow over his groin. “Have you had time to consider the matter, then?” Lorelei asked. “We could speak privately. You know that I do not wish to jeopardize
Alex with knowledge not meant for mortals any more than you.”

Rachel shook her head. “Lorelei, I can’t
tell you if you’ll act on it, and I don’t see you just blowing this off.”

“Then my suspicions are only further aroused. As is my ire.”

“Lorelei, I can’t!” Rachel protested. “It’s not that I don’t trust you. The two of you mean everything to me.”

“Not everything,” countered Lorelei. “You serve a cause that you place higher than your concern for Alex and
I. You serve Heaven.”

“That doesn’t make either of you mean any less to me.”

“Does it not?” Lorelei asked. “You are not a slave. You are not subject to supernatural compulsion to obey your superiors. Whatever obligations you feel, they are a matter of your own choice. Do you think I would ever place anything above my lovers? Do you think Alex would?”

“Lorelei, she’s got a job to do,” Alex interrupted. He didn’t snap, nor did he raise his voice. All pretense of being master of anything or anyone vanished. “We’ve all had to compromise. We’ve all got boundaries.”

“What if this endangers you?”

He turned to Rachel. “Could it?”

“I can’t answer that,” said the angel. “I will always do everything I can to protect you, Alex. And Lorelei, and our friends. But there are times when I just can’t interfere. I can support you, I can love you, but… I’ve got rules. It’s bad enough that we’re together at all, as far as Heaven is concerned. The second I step too far out of line, that’s the ball game.”

Her eyes flicked over to Lorelei. “You’re right. I care about my job. I love my job, but not as much as I love you. It’s not about losing my post. If it came to a choice like that, I’d hand the job back to my bosses with a doorknob shoved up its ass. This is about keeping you us all together. The moment
you
start giving the other angels a real reason to say you’re a threat, all three of us are in a world of shit. Nobody expects you to be a saint, or even to be nice, but I can’t put you in conflict with them. That would fuck over everything for all three of us.”

Lorelei did not respond. Alex looked down at the fresh scars on Rachel’s legs and belly. He had seen her fight demons before, but beyond that, he didn’t think anything could hurt her. He also knew that she was even more powerful now than she had been back then, when she was—“It’s something mortal, isn’t it?” Alex asked.

Rachel winced. “Lover—“

“The problem is someone who’s mortal, and who still has a guardian angel with them,” he reasoned, “because if they didn’t, there’d be no conflict with Heaven.”

The angel sighed. “Motherfucker.”

“Unless it was some angel just being an asshole,” Alex continued, “but if that was the case, you wouldn
’t have to keep your mouth shut.”

Again, Rachel just shook her head. “Please stop.”

“There are reasons we both love this man,” Lorelei reminded her quietly. She shifted on the bed, moving closer to them both at the edge.

“Yeah? There are reasons I love you, too, y’know.”

“Okay,” said Alex.

“Okay what?”

“Okay, whatever. If that’s the problem, then we deal with it whenever it’s out in the open like normal people. We never thought life would be easy street all the time. It’s not always good guys versus bad guys. Sometimes there aren’t any of one or the other.”

“Well, you’re pretty definitely a good guy,” Rachel muttered.

“Look, the point is, if that’s the dividing line between when you can help me and when you can’t, then I’ve got nothing to cry about. I gotta just live life at some point, right?”

Rachel didn’t respond. She looked to Lorelei. The succubus
let out a long breath and nodded in concession. “You have confirmed nothing and denied nothing. I had hoped to draw more detail out of you. Having failed at that, though, it is possible that there is no direct or intentional threat at all, but perhaps some other matter that concerns you.”

“It’s true,” Alex nodded. “I could wipe out on my bike tomorrow.”

“I was kinda hoping to make sure you couldn’t walk tomorrow,” Rachel said. “It’s still your birthday.”

“Kinda long past that, actually,” Alex noted.

“Fuck that. Your birthday’s over when we say it’s over.” She looked to Lorelei. “Are we okay?”

“I will not be able to forget my suspicions,” Lorelei said, “but I think I understand your concerns now.” She reached out to take Rachel’s hand. “I would burn all of Heaven to the ground before I allowed us to be driven apart.”

Rachel just laughed. “Don’t. Don’t tempt me right now.”

Lorelei let the issue drop with a sly grin. “I
would tempt you toward much more pleasurable things tonight.”

*   *   *

The door opened loudly, breaking the silence of an otherwise undisturbed conference room. Its sole occupant sat before table with his arms behind his back. Each wrist had been cuffed to one of the chair’s back legs. The room’s lights had been on the whole time, but the young man still tried to doze off. With the arrival of newcomers, he raised his head.

“Woah, waitasecond,” a voice said, “
you’ve had him sitting like this since we dropped him off?”

“But you said—“

“Goddammit, this is not what I instructed,” a third man said. He came closer to the chair as he spoke, with the sound of keys in a ring. He ducked down behind the chair. “Listen, I’m gonna take off the cuffs. Just take it easy.”

There was a tug at the bonds. His left arm was freed first, then his right. The aches in his back and shoulders did not ease so much as they shifted,
now that he could finally move after an indeterminable amount of time stuck in the same uncomfortable position.

“Get your ass down to the other rooms and make sure the other guys aren’t being treated this way,” said the first voice. “This isn’t Guantanamo Bay.”

“Are you okay? You look like you can move your arms,” he heard the man behind him ask.

He turned his head this way and that, rolled his shoulders and put his hands on the table, but said nothing.

The door shut and locked once more. The two new arrivals, both dressed in suits, moved around the table. One of them set a plastic bottle of cold water from a vending machine in front of the prisoner. He then sat down on the other side of the table, laid aside his manila file folders and said, “I’m Paul.” He gestured to the man with the blond crew-cut, who remained standing. “This is Joe.”

Paul waited for a response and heard none. “We can arrange a trip to the bathroom if you need,
it’s okay,” he said, striking a mildly friendly tone. “No cuffs or anything like that while you’re in there.”

Again, he heard no response, so he continued. “Your name is Drew Jones. You just turned twenty-one, you live in an apartment
off Aurora Avenue North and you’ve enrolled at the UW for the winter quarter, yadda yadda,” he said, and then paused. He tapped one of the manila folders. “Is the yadda yadda good enough? I could go on, if you need me to make more of a point of it.”

Again, silence. “Drew, do you know why you’re here?”

“Explain it to me,” Drew said calmly.

“You and your friend Wade were involved in an altercation tonight with several other individuals in plain view of an undercover Federal agent. One of those people you fought with died on the scene.”

“I’m under arrest?”

“What do you think?”

“I haven’t been told that ‘til now. Ain’t been advised of my rights. I don’t know who you are other than ‘Paul’ and ‘Joe.’”

“We’re with the FBI, Drew. Who were those men you fought with tonight?”

“You still ain’t advisin’ me of my rights, dawg,” Drew said, his voice strong but his demeanor serene.

“Drew,” Paul sighed, “do you know those men had connections with a Mexican drug cartel?”

“I know that
Miranda v. Arizona
says you are required to advise me of my rights.”

Paul smiled. “I imagine anyone who can cite the full name of that case knows his rights well enough without having
them read to him from a card.”

“Do I get my phone call?”

“Not gonna happen, sorry,” Paul shook his head. “And yes, that’s legal. You stepped in something deep and messy. You know that, don’t you? The man you and your friend set on fire burned straight to ashes. You know that isn’t natural, right?”

Drew’s eyes shifted from one man to the other and back again. “I want to talk to my lawyer
.”

“You heard what I just said, right
?”

“Yes. I want to talk to my lawyer.”

“This isn’t a television show.”

“I want to talk to my lawyer.”

“Drew, you’re in serious trouble. It’s in your best interests to cooperate.”

“I want to talk to my lawyer.”

“Drew, cut the crap. Your buddy Wade already told us everything. He’s still a loyal soldier deep down.”

The conversation halted. Eventually Paul spotted the quiet grin as it slowly spread across Drew’s face. “Then why you even in here talkin’ to me?”

“Because we need to verify what he said,” Paul shrugged, seeming reasonable and calm, “and because we need to know if you’ll cooperate, too.”

“I want to talk to my lawyer.”

“Drew,” grunted Paul, “there could be a way out of this if you cooperate now.”

“I’ll cooperate with my lawyer,” Drew said.

“What do you think we’re doing here, Drew?” Paul asked, maintaining his conciliatory tone. “Who do you think you’re dealing with?”

Drew gave a slow shake of his head. “I want to talk to my lawyer.”

“Do you work for anyone, Drew? Did you fight with those men on behalf of someone else?”

“I want to talk to my lawyer.”

“Where’d you get all the money to rent an apartment and buy a car?”

“I want to talk to my lawyer.”

Joe spoke up: “Has she been sleeping with you, Drew?”

At that, Drew’s gaze shifted. His jaw clenched for a brief moment. “I want to talk to my lawyer.”

“Oh, bothered by that, are you?” Joe smirked. “Is that because she has, or because she hasn’t? Or because she’s sleeping with one of your other buddies, huh? Maybe more than one of ‘em?”

“I want to talk to my lawyer.”

“Not gonna stand up for yourself?”

“I want to talk to my lawyer.”

“Must be rather emasculating, is all, I would think.”

“I want to talk to my lawyer.”

“Alright, fine, fine,” Joe said, waving his hands. “Hell with it. You sit and chew on your situation for a while. You’re with us for the duration, anyway. While you’re in here alone, you should consider who you’ve been running around with, and what they’ve gotten out of you. ‘cause all you’ve gotten is a heap of trouble for yourself.”

The agents stood. All they left was the plastic bottle of water.

“Hey, wait,” Drew said before Paul shut the door.

The agent leaned back in. “Yeah?”

“You still haven’t advised me—“

Paul shut the door and locked it. He walked several steps away before he spoke. “That got us nowhere.”

“He might need time to stew on things some more. It’s fine. You know how all this goes, Paul. We’ve gotta let him be the first to drop the ‘v-word.’”

“Yeah, well.
You still want to take the lead with Reinhardt?”

“Yes. Hang back. If he thinks you’re the one in charge, that’s fine.”

They came to another small conference room and looked through the window before opening the door. Inside, they found Wade sitting at a table, rubbing his wrists.

“I’m sorry about the restraints earlier,” said Joe as he came in. “That wasn’t what we wanted done. It was a screw-up and it’ll be dealt with. I had them come in and release you the moment I
found out. Your buddy, Jones, too.”

“Uh-huh,” Wade nodded, watching him evenly. He still wore most of his steampunk outfit, though with all the gears and metal pins removed from his vest and shirt he just looked like a poor, hatless cowboy.