Natural Consequences (67 page)

“Oh, you little shit!” she shrieked and slammed her left fist down on the mutt’s head. The force of her blow flung him off, sending the wolf to the ground, but once more another came in from the same side. She couldn’t get a grip, couldn’t find her footing and knew she’d be in just as much trouble as Donald before long.

* * *

“Aw, man, they’ve got those other FBI agents,” murmured Alex. He crouched at the window set into the main entrance doors with Lorelei beside him. They found no enemies to fight on their way through the halls, but they did find the bodies of Keeley and the other
tac officers.

“Do not let this display fool you, love,” Lorelei warned. Nguyen and
Lanier knelt with their hands on their heads, facing the building with a gun-toting vampire in a suit watching them both. “They mean to kill us all. At best, they will hold captives only long enough to extract all possible information.” Her eyes slowly swept their field of vision to take in as much as she could. “I count fifteen, but they would be foolish not to have the other exits covered.”

“Better eyes than mine,” he grunted.

“I see quite well in the darkness, but I would not underestimate their talent for stealth.”

“What do you think they’re waiting for?”

Lorelei shook her head. “I cannot say. Most often what hinders their kind is internal politics and suspicion. I believe one of them rules the vampires of New York, and I see another from Las Vegas. This is a greater concern for them than I ever would have guessed.”

“How many of these guys do you know?” Alex asked.

“I have known a fair number, though I have generally avoided them. Of all the curses to afflict mortals, theirs is one of the most easily spread,” she grimaced. “That in combination with their longevity makes for a good number of such vermin.”

Alex considered it with a frown. “Well, we should give the guys a couple more minutes to get set before we do anything,” he said. “No telling when or if Rachel can handle her side of this on her own, either, right?”

“I would not hazard a guess when she might aid us. We may have to resolve the rest of this before she is able to help.”

“What’s she dealing with, anyway?”

He saw her stiffen slightly at the question. Her answer came slowly. “I believe Rachel would rather I not say.”

“Hrm,” he grunted, his eyes turning back to the window.

“She only wants to protect you, love,” Lorelei said. “Admittedly, I am torn on the subject myself. I would tell you all, but Rachel…”

Alex shook his head. “It’s fine. I understand. I’m used to it,” he added.

Her hand reached out to his. “You seem accustomed to crisis, too.”

“Do I?” he murmured. “I guess it’s just… familiar. Molly and Onyx helped me a lot yesterday. Kind of put everything into perspective. It’s a long story.”

“You carry a new confidence in your eyes,” Lorelei observed, “but you are still yourself. Still the Alex I have known. I like it.”

Alex glanced at her smile and couldn’t help but grin back and blush a little. He suspected she would always be able to get that reaction from him. “You don’t have to hide anything from me, you know,” he said. “Your face. Any of it.”

“This is my natural face,” Lorelei told him. “At least, it is my natural face now. You saw an echo of the past. Nothing more. It takes no effort to look like this.”

“Hauser and Keeley both figured I’d turn on you after I saw that,” Alex shrugged. “I figured they’d tell you the same thing. Didn’t want you to wonder.”

She squeezed his hand. “I never doubted you.”

“I’m just saying. You don’t have to hide anything from me, ever.”

“There is much to tell you, but now is not the appropriate time,” said Lorelei. He gave a nod of agreement, turning his eyes out to the window once more. She came to a decision. “Rachel faces one who engineered much of this, if not all of it,” she explained. “To look upon him, you would not think to call him one of your personal demons… but no term would fit better.” Lorelei gave a small shake of her head then, indicating she would risk telling nothing further. “Rachel loves you. Trust her.”

“Loves us,” he corrected with a slight grin. “Okay, we can’t wait forever. We have to do something to help those agents out there.”

“We might find a way to slip out of this building undetected,” suggested Lorelei. “I cannot open doors without being seen, but we may find a broken window or the like.”

Alex considered it but shook his head. “If they spot us pulling any tricks, they might just kill their hostages on general principle
. This whole mob came out here looking for me, right? Maybe we should just give ‘em what they want.”

* * *

Once upstairs, Wade split his group in half to secure the floor in what little time they could spare. He took Amber with him to the corner office while Jason and Drew hustled down the hall to jam the doors shut at the far stairwell. The pair gave only a quick peek into each room they passed on the way, repeating the process on their way back.

“Wait up,” Drew said at the double doors of the main center office pool. “Saw some light out there.”

“Where?” Jason hissed.

“Outside window. Looked weird. C’mon.” Drew moved as quietly as he could, keeping his head low and watching for any odd danger the office might provide. He and Jason passed through the rows of desks, noting the wreckage from Alex’s earlier fight
in the same room.

They crept to the windows, risked a quick look, and shared a gasp of surprise. The grounds below flashed with the orange lights of flames and the bright glow of two halos as a pair of angels—one quite familiar and the other a stranger—battled against a swarm of wolves and wolf-like monsters.

Rachel appeared to hold her own, but not much more. She struggled against two and three at a time, battering away one beast only for another to jump in and take its place. The other angel flailed and struggled to pry a wolf off his back as its jaws sank deeper and deeper into his shoulder.

“Can we help her?” Jason asked.

Drew turned to look around the room, but found no options. “Not unless you think shooting with that pistol will help. There ain’t even nothin’ here I could throw worth a damn. ‘sides, we gotta stick with the team. C’mon,” he said. Drew gave Jason a slight tug on his sleeve, heading out of the room again, and then came to a stop.

“Aw, shit,” he grunted. “It’s Hauser.”

“Well, Alex said he was KO’d up here,” Jason frowned.

“Yeah. Suppose it ain’t right to just leave ‘im. Help me get him up.”

The pair shared the older man’s weight between them, each taking one of his arms across their shoulders before hustling out of the room. They moved quickly down the hall, passing Theo’s dead body before reaching the corner office. They found Wade and Amber there slowly and gently pushing up one window.

“Found your boss, Amber,” Jason huffed.

“Ssshhh,” she warned. Amber spared them only a glance as the two guys settled Hauser down on the floor.

“What’s goin’ on?” Drew asked.

“Looks like a couple of Amber’s buddies’re still alive after all,” Wade said in a deliberately low voice. With the window now halfway open, Wade crouched low beside it and picked his M4 up off the floor.

Amber took up a spot beside Wade to look outside.
Bridger followed. “I can’t believe they’re alive,” she breathed. “This is so bad.”

“You don’t think they might’ve been turned into vampires already, do you?” suggested Drew.

“No, we saw that happen in the bus tunnel,” answered Jason. “They wouldn’t be up and moving already. It takes a little time to process, I think.”

“We have to do something,” said Amber.

“Well, ev’rybody’s standin’ still,” Wade murmured. “Think I can pop that asshole behind ‘em as long as nobody’s movin’, but I dunno what good that’d do.” He quietly drew a bead on the vampire just the same, figuring he made for a higher priority target than any of the others.

“Are you sure?”
Bridger asked. He looked from Wade to the agents and back again. “How good are you with that thing?”

“Pretty good,” he said, “presumin’ y’all crazy bla
ck helicopter CIA types keep y’all’s weapons sighted in properly.”

“Rachel’s on the other side of the building fighting a bunch of werewolves,” said Jason. “Her and another
angel. I can’t tell which side’s winning.”

“Sounds like that’s above our pay grade,” Wade decided. His eyes stayed on his target. “Lorelei an’ Alex said they’re fixin’ to start some shit down there. I reckon if they do, I better be ready to nail this one asshole here
. Maybe Amber, Bridger and I can provide coverin’ fire for their buddies t’ make a run for it. You two down with that?”

“Yeah,”
Amber nodded, taking up a spot beside him.

Bridger moved to another window, his pistol drawn and ready. “On it.” He didn’t bother asking why Wade had suddenly taken charge. The younger man had plainly been through more training and firefights than Bridger and Amber together.

“What do we do?” asked Jason.

“Watch the hallway an’ the other window,” Wade instructed, gesturing to the other corner. “
If one of us goes down from a gunshot or whatever, take care of it. But mostly ah figure they ain’t gonna settle f’r one angle of attack. We need to be able to put up some sort of defense, so that’s y’all. Hopefully they don’t think t’ just send in someone downstairs to shoot up through the floor,” he added.

Drew and Jason shared a grim look. Amber felt much the same way. She glanced back at them, and at her boss. “How does Hauser look?” she asked.

“Out, but he’s breathin’,” said Drew. “Don’t worry. If he wakes up, I’ll just punch him out again.”

Amber opened her mouth to object, but then couldn’t think of a reason why.

* * *

“Molly, I gotta let th
e leader guy go,” Onyx whispered. “Those two hostages gotta take priority here.”

If the redhead heard, she gave little indication. Onyx didn’t dare break Molly’s concentration, either. Not at this point in her spell. She frowned, shifting her tools in her hands for another round of confusion hexes on her new target.

Onyx shivered in the cold. Bundled up for a night in wet woods or not, the night only grew more unpleasant under Molly’s magical guidance. Eventually, Onyx knew, adrenaline would kick in and she’d forget about the cold, but until then it was goddamn freezing out. Rather than blocking out the rain, the tree above them served only to collect the water into great big drops that fell across them both.

“You about ready for showtime?”

Molly kept murmuring. She gave the slowest of nods, holding up two fingers, and then dropped back into meditation again.

Two minutes
, Onyx thought.
Please let this all hang on for just two more minutes.

* * *

“Patience, please,” Wentworth urged his companions. “I have heard everyone out. Fear not. This impasse will resolve itself.”

“Impasse?” scowled Unferth. “What impasse?”

“The one with—ah, that is—I mean our tactical quandary.” He gestured to the pair of FBI agents kneeling before Marco and his gun, and the building beyond.

“Sir,” Rupert broke in, “there’s no impasse. We simply need you to give the order to attack.”

Murmurs of agreement rose around Wentworth. He found more agreement than he expected. In fact, he couldn’t find a single dissenter. His eyes went back to the darkened building before them. Sure, there was still the fight on the other side, but that was planned. That was the whole reason he agreed to work with the mongrels in the first place.

Why not attack?

“Hey, uh, boss?” asked Marco as he turned his back on the hostages.

“Marco, turn around!” Wentworth snapped. “Keep your eyes on the prisoners!”

“Oh, right, sorry,” Marco blinked, shifting his attention again. Then his head tilted curiously. “Um, but, boss…?”

“Very well,” said Wentworth to his allies. “If they wish to hide, we’ll just have to dig them out. Unferth, Rupert, each of you will take four—“

“Boss!” called Marco again.

“What?” Wentworth growled. He turned once more to Marco, only to see the other vampire pointing toward the partly open door to the front entrance.

Guns and other weapons came up at the ready. Wentworth held out his hand to signal for readiness. “Hold,” he warned.

“Hey out there!” came a voice—Carlisle’s voice. “Don’t shoot! We’re good. Just want to talk.” The door remained only partly open, affording no one a view of the speaker behind it.

“Show yourself!” demanded Unferth.

“I’m kinda not in the mood to get shot,” Carlisle replied. “And someone other than
Unferth should do the talking.”

“
I will speak,” called out Wentworth as he stepped forward. “Where is the demon, Lorelei? I would treat with an equal.”