Natural Consequences (39 page)

Frowning,
Doug looked, too. He saw her get to the corner, already putting her long coat back on. Her body language shift dramatically. In one moment, her walk commanded the attention of everyone around her; in the next, she was just another pedestrian on a blustery street. Then she was gone.

He sighed, looked up at the SUV and waited for it to pull back enough to allow him to exit his car. His hand reached for his phone to hit the speed dial. “This is
Bridger. I lost ‘em. But I can at least confirm that Lorelei isn’t a vampire.”

*   *   *

Lorelei walked against the wind, her coat whipping around her legs until she had it secured once more. She couldn’t know whether or not the vampires knew where Alex lived. If they did, however, they likely employed mortal surveillance during the daytime. The spells erected by Molly and Onyx would turn attention away from their apartment, but not the whole building. That meant people staking out the exits, probably a car ready to follow Alex as he left… and that meant distractions were in order.

She would have preferred more solid information, but for now she had to run on educated guesses—both about her enemies and her friends.

Nothing in Amber’s conversation with Alex hinted at any particular agenda on her part. Lorelei observed the whole thing, having never left the apartment in the first place. She held to the corners and the shadows as her lover and their guests got themselves together, unnoticed by all thanks to her supernatural talents. Even Onyx, who had already demonstrated that she could see through Lorelei’s illusions, seemed to detect nothing. As she suspected, neither of the witches were exactly morning people. Either Onyx had the best poker face Lorelei had ever seen, or she simply didn’t have her mystic “eyes” open before breakfast.

She waited through their morning shamblings and
chatter. She listened for clues from Amber, who ultimately dropped none. And then she stayed ahead of them as they all left in Molly’s car to ensure a clean getaway—at least from whomever the vampires might have watching.

The other faction probably had someone watching, too.

Lorelei strode down the block, glancing around for a convenient setting. With the city’s obsession with convenient, overpriced coffee, it was just a matter of finding a shop with the right amount of customers. She found a likely spot, turned and looked around at the street with a welcoming smile for anyone who might still be watching her, and went inside.

Minutes later, as she sat at a tall table with a paper mug in her hand, her gamble paid off. The leather and denim ensembles on the two newcomers contrasted sharply with the
hipsters and casual wear of the rest of the coffee shop’s customers, but in Seattle such contrasts were often the norm. They revealed themselves less by their clothes and more by their posture and body language. Few people entered a room and took subtle sniffs in more than one direction.

She waited and observed. That two of them would appear surprised her, though on reflection she knew it shouldn’t have. They operated
in packs as often as loners. The man was tall, well-muscled and serious. His companion, a pretty if rugged blonde, gave every indication of following his lead.

They took in their surroundings, turned toward Lorelei and approached her without a word or glance at one another. The succubus waited. “I apologize,” she said mildly, gesturing to the other side of her small, round table. “I have only the one empty chair.”

The tall man sat in it, staring daggers at Lorelei while she smiled back at him with obvious interest in her eyes. His companion looked around and spotted a nearby table where a man sat facing a chair that held a friend’s jacket. The blonde took the jacket off the chair and put it on the table before picking up the chair, daring him to object with her eyes. He risked no protest as she placed the chair at Lorelei’s table and sat in it.

“You allowed us to see you,” the man said, his voice deep and gravelly. “You obviously wish to talk. We will wait for one other first.”

“I have time to wait.” Lorelei smiled charmingly, leaning forward a little as she asked, “Would I have escaped you if I’d wanted otherwise?”

“No. You reek of him.”

“Naturally. I have claimed him. What do I call you?”

The blonde put her hand over his before he answered. Lorelei noted it with a raised eyebrow. Her smile did not diminish as she leaned back once more, sweeping her hair back with a hand. As she intended, the male’s eyes never left her. “We will wait for one other,” the man repeated.

Even Lorelei’s mild disappointment came out with a sultry look. “Very well.”

They didn’t wait long. Lorelei recognized the werewolf by her confident posture and her purposeful stride as soon as she walked into the shop. Such short hair was well out of the ordinary; most werewolves let it grow out, rather than buzzing it down so close to the scalp. Then again, her kind could grow a full head of hair in days. Perhaps she had something to fix.

The woman looked over the shop much as her packmates did before coming over to the table. The blonde relinquished her chair without a word and quickly found another one, giving an instant clue as to the pecking order.

“You are the demon,” the newcomer said.

“I am Lorelei. Are you Diana? We only saw one another in passing, and under terrible circumstances.” Receiving a nod of confirmation, Lorelei then glanced to the male once more. “And you?”

Diana held up one hand. “Has she spoken to you or tried anything?” she asked the man beside her.

He shook his head slowly. “She only asked our names. I did not allow more.”

Lorelei pursed her lips with mild amusement. “You gave orders not to speak with me,” she surmised.

“I know what you are,” said Diana.

“Do you worry I might seduce your male right here in the coffee shop?” asked Lorelei. “Ah. Yes, you considered it. You ensured he would not come alone,” she said, nodding toward the blonde, “and you arrived as quickly as you could. Perhaps you believe I’ll throw some demonic enchantment over him? All magic is inhibited by the presence of many mortal witnesses, Diana. Mine as well as that which enables
your shifting forms.”

The blonde scowled. “Demons lie.”

“That we do. And worse. Just like your kind. Again, what should I call you? Feel free to lie about your names. I won’t hold it against you.”

“I’m Jared,” said the male. “This is Sally.”

“Excellent. Can I get you anything?”

“Alex,” said Diana flatly.

“Straight to the point, then,” Lorelei nodded. “You want him. I have claimed him. You know that he is protected.”

“The angel surprised us,” Diana conceded, “but we tasted her sweet flesh. My pack would be happy for more. Another clash would not go so well for her.”

Lorelei glanced to Jared. “Tell me, how many of your pack have you lost in this endeavor already?”

“Seven,” he answered.

“Jared,” said Diana.

Lorelei’s attention turned back to her. “Is
Alex worth that? Is he worth more?”

“You tell me,” said Diana, her eyes narrowing. “What do you want for him?”

“You wish to bargain?” Lorelei laughed.

“I am a practical woman.”

“You are most plainly not,” the succubus replied, still quite amused.

“I suspect you aren’t as strong as the angel,” said Diana. “You are an obstacle. I will remove you one way or the other. In the end, I will win.”

“No, Diana, you won’t,” said Lorelei, still entirely at ease despite Diana’s intensity. “You have already lost the endgame, or you wouldn’t be here now. Neither I, nor the angel nor Alex make any difference in that.”

Diana’s eyes narrowed. “I’m afraid I don’t take your meaning.”

“I know how all this turns out for you. I’ve met the demon that created the first of your kind. You’re Hell’s stray pets, set loose to sow chaos in the neighbor’s yard.”

Silence fell between the two. Lorelei saw the tiniest crack in Diana’s façade of self-assurance. She decided to widen it.

“You were born a normal girl, Diana. I imagine you had a family, but at some point you did something more than a little naughty. Something vile. Hit and run accident, perhaps? Knowing abandonment of a friend in dire jeopardy? Or maybe you skipped straight to murder, but it was surely someone who didn’t deserve it.“ She saw a blink, but didn’t acknowledge it. “The particulars are of no concern to me. They’re not my business. But
you
know the details.

“The one who brought you into your pack knows them, too, I’d wager,” Lorelei continued, casually pouring a packet of sugar into her coffee. “Is he still around? She? Someone came into your life and started pushing you. Perhaps it was with honeyed words and a seductive, predatory grin, or perhaps it was more intimidating than that. Whatever their technique, someone taught you that it was easier to look at people as prey rather than as equals. Someone guided you down a bloody, ugly path.”

None of her audience spoke. Diana maintained a stern, patient façade, but Sally’s breath seemed to deepen as she listened. Jared continued to stare at Lorelei. She didn’t even need to look to know. Instead, she continued.

“Your sins grew worse. You broke from your family, perhaps in a gruesome fashion. Whether the killing started right from the beginning, or if it came later, it doesn’t matter: at some point, you became a killer, and you
liked
it. You hungered for it. The further you got from polite society and conventional morality, the better. Mercy, guilt, ethics—those are all the silly illusions that make people into sheep, aren’t they? You feel no remorse. That feeling died well before your first shift. Before the first time you ate human flesh and found that nothing was sweeter.”

“Your angel friend tastes sweeter,” Diana taunted.

“An appropriate segue,” observed Lorelei. “Haven’t you ever wondered why the one who brought you into your pack couldn’t just bite you in the first place? Has anyone ever explained all this testing and initiation as anything but ‘tradition,’ as if that’s an answer? Do you think the older ones even know?

“You met the reason why last night. Once upon a time, Diana, you had an angel. You were under the protection of Heaven. The angels can’t be around to protect mortals all the time, of course, and they can do little to protect mortals from their own choices. There
must
be free will, you see, because without free will there could be no faith, and nothing is so important to Heaven as faith. You can’t have faith without free will, and you can’t have free will if humanity knows the angels will intervene in every little genocide, hm? Bad things happen to good people all the time, Diana. Angels let good people suffer. They
have
to, otherwise Heaven’s whole scheme loses its charm.

“All those crimes, all the little atrocities you committed on your path to becoming what you are now? None of that was to condition you. None of it was to test your worth. All of that was done to drive away your angel, Diana.
You may think you were abandoned by Heaven’s light, but to your angel’s thinking, it was the other way around.

“It’s the same with the vampires. You’ll never meet one that didn’t want to become what they are. Oh, some of them piss and moan about lost humanity, but pin them down on it and you’ll find the truth. Only the worst sorts of people rise again after all the blood is drained from them. The good ones? Those drained by a vampire while still under Heaven’s light? They just die. The angels make sure of that. And it’s the same for your kind.

“Evil doesn’t come
from
the touch of Hell, Diana. Evil
invites
that touch.”

Lorelei smiled sweetly at her new acquaintances. “You can’t talk to mortals about these things, you know. It removes the suspension of disbelief. It ruins that whole con of faith and free will that I spoke of before. The angels become quite cross about that. There’s no reason you can’t know, though. The fate of your soul is sealed. But don’t worry,” she smiled warmly. “I’m not one to judge.”

Silence fell between them. Lorelei noticed that Jared’s face was still set in stone. Sally looked disturbed, but held her tongue. Diana’s eyes placed her reaction somewhere between the two. “Demons lie,” she said, echoing Sally.

“That we do,” Lorelei agreed. “But sometimes we must tell the truth, too, or it would be too easy to disbelieve everything we say. You’ll have to decide for yourself whether I was lying to you just now, or if I decided to tell you the truth—one monster to another.”

“Why tell us all this?” asked Diana.

The succubus casually picked up her mug again.
Her manner remained almost insultingly pleasant. “You asked what I might accept in exchange for Alex. I wanted to show you that you have nothing of value to offer me. You bargained that away for a fur coat and frightening claws long ago.”

Diana drew in a long and slow breath. “So it’s war, then?”

“I don’t know,” Lorelei replied after another sip. “Knowing what you know now, is he even worth fighting over? Do you look forward to seeing the Pit so soon?” She let the threat sink in. “Or would you rather have someone to put in a good word for you once you arrive? Because you will be there, sooner or later, and my good word is something I will offer in exchange for peace. Antagonize me further and even the rest of the damned will pity you.”