Natural Consequences (71 page)

“I want you to get the fuck out of this city. Forever. Don’t come back. Don’t send anyone else here. Just go now and forget all about this.”

Wentworth bristled at her tone. He brushed off his jacket. “Indeed.”

“This,” she said, holding up the remains of her hand mirror, “is far worse than a threefold curse. I
t’s all dependent on your actions and your intentions. If you want to survive it, I suggest you leave now, go home, and don’t even so much as think about hurting anyone.”

“Little strumpet,” Wentworth snarled, “
if you think—“

Her black wand came up at his face, causing him to jerk back. “
Or we can skip right through the conditional stuff and go to me melting your brain. Or we can see if my partner can put her lightning between the trees yet.”

Though appalled by her arrogance, Wentworth knew better than to push his luck. He’d already decided to flee. With a last rally of his pride, the vampire spit at her feet, turned to walk away and promptly tripped over another tree root to fall on his face.

“Like I said,” Onyx smiled, “you might want to keep those nasty thoughts in check.” She spared a last glance to watch him rise and scamper off before returning to Molly’s side. The other witch remained under their tree, her full attention still on the scene in front of the old building.

“We good?” asked Onyx, touching her partner’s shoulder.

“I can’t see any bad guys still up,” murmured Molly. Her tone and stance made plain the effort spent on maintaining her hold on the weather. “Lorelei’s still alive, but I think that messed her up. I can’t tell what’s going on with Alex and that angel.”

Onyx hardly needed the narration. She saw it all for herself. “Is it just me,”
she asked, “or is Alex about to punch him?”

* * *

“What do you mean, ‘no?’”

The angel bore blood and bruises from his fight. His wings were in tatters. He looked at Alex without answering his question
, then stepped straight through the young man as he moved to Hauser’s side. “Joseph,” he said, crouching beside the fallen agent, “you must rise. This is not over. The monsters still live.”

Alex glanced over the battlefield. Lorelei
remained crumpled in a ball, alive but not moving. He saw Molly and Onyx emerge from the tree line, watching him and the angel. Not a single vampire remained in sight. They could be hidden, Alex thought, but by now they would likely have taken some shots. The werewolves all lay still where they fell—Jared torn up and bloody at the base of the steps, Diana just beside him with the sword through her torso.

“I don’t see any monsters moving around here,” Alex said. He watched the angel warily. “
Why do you seem familiar?”

Hauser heaved himself to his hands and knees, shaking his head to clear the cobwebs. His eyes swept the concrete until he found what he needed.

Alex saw it, too. He stomped down on the rosary before Hauser got to it. The cross snapped under his foot. “How do I know you?” Alex pressed, still focused on the angel.

Memories raced by. He’d seen this face before, while lying in a field in springtime, and in the dirt outside a saloon, and in a dirty, blood-strewn room in Antioch. Every time, Alex remembered looking up to see this man standing over him.

He couldn’t remember the angel’s words, but he remembered praise… and apologies. Or excuses.

He remembered the angel’s voice. “That was you in my head tonight, wasn’t it?” Alex asked, and had his answer in the surprised, guilty expression that washed over the angel’s face.

“Dammit,” Hauser snarled, “who are you talking to?” He looked over his shoulder, saw the angel, and stumbled in shock.

“Joseph, no!” the angel blurted out, but it was already too late. He looked over to Alex. “Why wouldn’t you listen to me?” he demanded. “They’re monsters, Alex! All of them! Especially that Gypsy bitch and that demon whore,” he added, pointing past Alex, but whatever else he might have said was cut off by Alex’s fist in his mouth.

He didn’t hurt the angel much. The strike made Hauser wail oddly, but if Alex caused the angel any pain, it was all emotional. That seemed entirely plausible, though, judging from the look on the angel’s face.

“Aw, fucking dammit, no,” someone gasped from the doorway. Alex saw Rachel there, looking at him and the angel with despair. “Alex, you can’t—!” She stopped herself. Her head tilted. “You aren’t freaking out.”

“I feel a little freaked out,” he assured her, his eyes back on the other angel.

“Yeah, but you should… you should be worse.” She stepped close to him. Her hand came to his shoulder. “You know who this is, don’t you?”

“I don’t,” Alex shrugged. “I’ve never met any other angels than you and the ones we ran into together. The only other one you ever talked about was… was Donald,” he remembered.

Images of battlefields and dirty streets flitted through his mind, all of them the last sights he’d ever seen. In each of them stood Donald, reaching down to lift Alex to his feet again.
He thought back to the boatman’s question. “Was it always Donald?” he breathed.

“Yes,” Rachel said. Her eyes searched him. “Every time. He wanted you to be a hero every time.”

“It was only for the greater good!” Donald protested.

Alex shook his head. He glanced toward the witches, who drew closer with their wands ready. “I’m over it,” he said. “Shouldn’t I be?”

“Shit, I wouldn’t be. But mostly I worried that you’d freak out like Hauser here,” she huffed sadly. Her gaze fell to the stunned agent with pity… and then her eyes went wide with horror.

“You didn’t,” she breathed.

“Didn’t what?” asked Alex.

“Rachel,” Donald began, holding his hands up defensively, “I can explain!”

“You son of a bitch!” Rachel snarled. Righteous fury consumed her as she turned to face him again. “You
possessed
him? How
could
you?”

Donald didn’t make it
out of reach before she nearly lifted him off the ground with a kick to his gut. She slammed the palms of her hands against his ears, grabbed hold of his hair and threw him past Alex onto the grass.

Then she got mean.

“Are those angels?” someone asked beside Alex. “And are they fighting?”

He glanced over to Nguyen and
Lanier, who stepped out into the entryway with him. Though disheveled and bloody like everyone else, they seemed okay enough to walk. “Yeah,” Alex nodded. “Looks like.”

“Stop hitting me!” Donald yelled.

“Stop being a bed-wetting fucker!” Rachel yelled back louder before hitting him again.

“That’s Rachel,” Alex added needlessly.

“What’s wrong with Hauser?” asked Lanier. The others glanced down to see the lead agent huddled against one wall, watching the angels fight in a state of shock and distress.

“I think, uh… I think he saw something he’s not supposed to see?” said Alex. He scratched his head awkwardly, turned back to watch the brawl, and then saw the black monster on the sidewalk stir. “Oh, shit,” he grunted. “Tell me you guys have a gun on you.”

“We were looking for some inside,” Nguyen said, watching the werewolf rise with understandable alarm, “but we couldn’t find any.”

Alex dropped to his knees and grabbed at the sword imbedded in Diana. He gave it a hard tug, found it stuck fast, and put one foot against her hide as he strained to pull it out.

Jared pushed himself up with one ragged but still mighty arm, then another. His eyes seemed to glow with rage as they fixed on Alex and the agents.

“Get back inside!” Alex barked at them. “Grab Hauser and go!”

He felt someone step past him then, moving entirely the wrong way to avoid trouble. The loud boom of a shotgun followed. Alex found Wade standing over him, racking in another shot and firing again. Blood erupted from Jared’s torso as the second blast hit. Wade stepped up closer, pumping and firing until Jared fell back. With only one shell left in the weapon, Wade stepped close and let it rip into the creature’s chest. For all the werewolf’s resilience, the relentless point-blank assault of shotgun blasts was more than Jared could take. He collapsed in a bloody heap.

Alex watched in awe. Wade
turned and shrugged . “Ran outta bullets f’r the other guns,” he explained. “Figured we’d come see whut wuz goin’ on down here.”

The rest of Alex’s friends came outside along with Amber and
Bridger. They looked on in wonder at the final fight playing out on the grass. Jason looked to Alex curiously. “Why’s Rachel kickin’ that other angel’s ass?”

“I dunno.” Alex threw up his hands. “Something about wetting the bed?”

“That’s awkward,” grunted Drew.

“I know, right?”
Alex replied. He left the group to walk over to Lorelei, who had not yet picked herself up off the ground. Alex saw her wings and tail again, but they seemed to fade as he reached her. The woman on the ground before him had thin, scraggly hair and a misshapen curve to her back. He saw scabs and bald spots on her scalp.

Alex knelt beside her and put his hand on her shoulder. “Lorelei?” he asked.

“Leave me,” she hissed. “Just… give me time. I will recover.”

“Lorelei, you don’t need to hide from me.”

“Alex…”

“Look at me, Lorelei.
Please.”

Reluctantly, she consented. Her hand reached out for his. Alex saw pox scars and ugly, jagged nails. He held her hand gently and waited until Beletsunu’s face
turned to look up at him.

Alex leaned in and kissed her. His arms came around her small, weak shoulders as he drew her close.

“This will pass,” Lorelei hissed. “I just need a little time.”

“I don’t care,” Alex told her. “I love you.”

The others watched as the ragged and bloody angels brawled. After the loud chaos of the battle, this last struggle seemed almost quiet and anticlimactic, though it was plainly quite serious to the two combatants.

Donald managed a few blows and blocked a couple of Rachel’s punches and kicks,
but he simply couldn’t put up a fight to match Rachel. For every swing he threw, Rachel landed three. Eventually Rachel knocked him to his knees and swept up with a kick to his face that sent him sprawling on his back.

She let out a heavy breath, turning around to survey the field. “Is the rest of this fight done now?” she called out.

“Looks like,” Wade answered. “Reckon we’re all good. Watch yer boy there!”

Rallying in desperation, Donald rolled to his feet away from Rachel, stood and reached out one hand to ignite his sword of flame. “Enough!” he cried. “I will not allow you to—“

Lightning and a deafening crack of thunder silenced him. Everyone blinked at its brilliance. Donald fell to his knees, charred and stunned, his blade extinguished once more.

Rachel threw a tired wave toward Molly and Onyx. “Thanks,” she huffed.

Molly lowered her wand. “My pleasure,” she replied. “Does he really wet the bed?”

He followed the light.

Strange feelings washed over him. He’d forgotten his pain and his fear, but he knew, intellectually at least, that he should feel both. Paul Keeley saw darkness all around and instinctively moved toward the light.

The hallway seemed familiar. None of the illumination came from the overhead lamps, though, or from any window. It all shone from a beautiful brunette in a white dress, whose halo and broad wings cast light all around. She looked on Paul with a sad smile.

The mere sight of her comforted him. He didn’t know her, and yet he felt as if he always
had. She reached out her hands, which he took.

Paul looked around at the hallway. He saw
shell casings and several bodies lying on the floor. He saw himself on the floor. It all clicked.

“I’m
sorry, Paul,” said the angel.

His breath shuddered. He wondered, suddenly, if he even needed to breathe at all now. What was the point?
“Who are you?”

“My name is Elizabeth,” she said
. “I have known you and loved you all your life. I have watched over you since you were born, and I will take care of you now.”

She had a friend, apparently. Another angel stood there, somewhat shorter and seemingly younger but no less beautiful. “You did
good, Paul,” the blonde said. She reached out to squeeze his wrist briefly. “I’m Rachel.”

“What happened?” asked Paul.

“You fought back,” Rachel told him. Tears welled up in her eyes, but he saw as much pride as sorrow. “You saved the day. You saved your friends. And you saved pretty much everyone I love.”

“It didn’t feel like fighting,” Paul confessed. “It felt like weakness.”

“No, Paul,” Elizabeth shook her head. “It took great strength to overcome the power that held you. I only wish I could have aided you. The sorcery on this building left me unable to see you, and I had others to watch over. I could not come to you in time. I am sorry.”

“It’s what happens,” Rachel added. “It’s how all this works. We do the best we can. Elizabeth did the best she could.” She glanced at the other angel, who only had eyes for her charge. “She helped you become the man you are. I’m grateful for it.”

“What happens now?”

“Now we leave this place,” explained Elizabeth. “You will have no more fear, no more pain. You will leave behind who you have been, and you will once again be who you
are
. You will have answers.”

“And if you want to come back here someday, that’ll be your choice,” said Rachel. “This life is over now. But if you want another, you can have it.”

“We should go,” Elizabeth said.

“Thank you for waiting for me,” Rachel told her.

Elizabeth just nodded. “Donald is dealt with?”

“Jon and Marvin took him,” Rachel confirmed. “He’ll be dealt with later, but at least he’s under wraps for now.” She gave Paul’s arm another squeeze. “Thank you.”

Rachel left the other two to their journey. She passed Paul’s body in the hall, and Miguel’s and those of his comrades, and brought her hands to her face.

Knowing what rewards awaited those men made little difference. The dead still deserved to be mourned, even by angels.

Rachel wept.

* * *

“Look, I’ll take the fall for what I did. It was selfish and stupid and I’m not one to cover up my mistakes with bullshit. She didn’t control my mind or anything.”

“
Bridger!” Lanier hissed.

“What?”
Bridger whispered back.

“Shut up!”

Bridger shut his eyes tightly and nodded by way of apology. Like Lanier, he wore a body armor vest over his shirt and was now much better armed than he had been during the fight. With shotgun and carbine at the ready, the two agents positioned themselves on either side of the next closed door, counted off, and quickly pushed inside. The pair swept the room with their eyes, ready to blow away anything that moved.

Nothing stirred inside Hauser’s temporary office. The room lay perfectly still, occupied only by the old desk, chair, some of Hauser’s belongings and their improvised evidence locker.

Their posture relaxed. This room made for a clean sweep of the building. “I’m ready to call it a night,” Lanier sighed.

“Yeah, I wish,”
Bridger agreed.

“I’ll bet.”

“Okay, I deserved that. Probably a lot more before it’s over, too. I get it.”

“I just don’t get how you’re so sure she
didn’t
do some sort of mental magic on you or something,” said Lanier. He walked around the desk to examine Hauser’s laptop, still sitting open and ready. “You just seem so much smarter than this. It’s bad enough that you banged a suspect in custody, but a
sex demon
? What part of that seemed like a good idea? Unless she did get into your head?”

Bridger
ran a hand through his hair. “My warding spells all held. I know they did. And I knew it was seriously dumb, but…” he shook his head. “If she got into my head, she didn’t do it with magic. There’s all that sex appeal, and then there’s the occult curiosity, and—“

“Occult curiosity?”
Lanier blinked. “Seriously?”

“You ever commune with spirits?”
Bridger scowled. “You want to know the sort of things I’ve studied?”

Lanier
held up his hands. “Nope. I’m good. Don’t need to know. You just do your occulty thing and I’ll do my tech stuff and…” He paused with a frown, looking at the phone beside the desk. “Hauser had a five,” he said.

“Huh?”

“This isn’t Hauser’s,” Lanier muttered. He picked the black phone up off the desk and activated it, finding it unlocked. He instantly recognized the screen layout. Tapping the icons, Lanier found an active message trail—or at least a series of messages from the same source in response to a single outgoing message. Checking the time stamps as he read, Lanier’s face grew pale.

“What is it?” asked
Bridger.

“I think I know how they found us.”

* * *

“I should’ve just followed your lead the second you showed up,” sighed Alex. He walked hand in hand with Lorelei under the trees, ostensibly to sweep the area around the building but mostly just to catch a
minute alone. The familiar beauty of his lover’s face and her normal figure had returned, as she predicted. “I just had one of those moments where I figured your priorities and mine are pretty far apart, and I didn’t want to cross a point of no return.”

“You were not wrong to hesitate,” Lorelei told him. “
A further escalation would likely have had lasting consequences for our lives even after we escaped. It would have affected our friends, too. I had thought to free you and then we could address the details later, but I don’t blame you for not wanting to jump off that particular cliff.”

“Yeah, I guess,” he shrugged.
“Still. You wouldn’t have been put through all of… that,” he frowned, tilting his head back toward the building. “Whatever Hauser did to you. Lorelei, you know… if that’s your true face, you know I’m not—“

“It is not,” she assured him. “I am not wounded. I do not hide my true face with an illusion, as Hauser and his people suspected.
My body was molded into what you see now—or, rather, what you see when I let my demonic features show. This state also feels perfectly natural. You saw an echo of my past. I did not always look as I do now, but as I mentioned before… I was made into a succubus. What you saw is how I looked before that transformation.”

Alex nodded. “You didn’t want to talk about it,” he said gently. “I’m not going to pry.
I just wanted you to know it wouldn’t freak me out one way or the other.”

Her expression softened. “Your patience means so much… but no. I am not averse to telling you the story. Not now, after all we have shared and endured. I did not want to tell you that night when you asked because
you were already burdened with your own ugly memories. I know I can share my past with you. I can share anything with you.”

He nodded. “Yeah. You can.”

“Alex,” she said, coming to a stop. He felt the tug of her hand and faced her. “I must make a confession. This may be neither the time nor place, but I refuse to leave this matter hanging over our heads. It concerns the manner of my escape tonight.”

He watched her attentively, giving a little nod to encourage her to go on. “The power Hauser and Donald used
weakened me. I could not simply batter the door of my cell down or burn my way out. I had to wait for our captors to provide an opportunity, and I had to be somewhat more ruthless than you may have liked.

“I seduced one of the agents in my cell, Alex. I overcame his inhibitions, I used him and I left him passed out in my chair when I left. I cannot and do not claim that I had no other options as any sort of excuse. There were other possibilities. That was the one I chose.”

His eyes slowly widened. His mouth fell open with astonishment. “Jesus Christ, Lorelei!” he blurted. “What the hell? With that lead up, I thought you were gonna say you murdered somebody or something.”

“No. I have never been the sort for casual violence.” She watched and waited for him to say more.

Alex frowned a little as the revelation settled. “We talked about this,” he said.

“We did. Talking about it and knowing it has happened are different things.”

“Sure,” he nodded.

“I need to know how you feel, Alex.”

“How am I supposed to feel?”

Lorelei shook her head. “This is not about expectations. I don’t want you to arrive at some preconceived outcome. I want to know where you truly are.”

“What am I gonna say? I mean, how many other women have I been with?”

“You have my encouragement and support in that,” Lorelei countered. “I have enabled your other trysts for a number of reasons
—many of them quite selfish,” she noted soberly. “But I never obliged you to reciprocate. There have never been conditions, nor will I ever set any.”

“No, but you want your freedom.”

“Not remotely as much as I want you and your love. I need to know if we can do this. If we cannot, we—I—will have to adjust somehow.”

“I don’t want you to be someone you’re not,” Alex said. “I’ve never wanted that.” He
pushed through his hesitation. “Who was it?”

“
Bridger. Their occultist.”

“Are you attracted to him? Or was this more about convenience? I’m not mad, I just want to understand.”

“Both concerns played their part. I find him attractive, yes, and convenience played a role.”

Alex caught the tactful choice of words. “There’s more to say there.”

Lorelei conceded his point with a nod. “Initially, he was accompanied by another guard. I considered seducing them both, but it seemed inconvenient and so I sent the other man away.”

Alex blinked. “Huh.” He paused. “Did you
want
to get with both of them?”

“Only in the abstract,” Lorelei conceded. “My goal was our freedom. I enjoyed the tactics I used, certainly, but that enjoyment was a means and not an end.” She took his hands. “You don’t seem to be building toward anger or rejection. Are you hurt at all?”

His next questions were clearly rhetorical: “Do you still love me? Do you still want me?”

“
Of course. As much as I might enjoy other men, I will always want you more. There is simply no competitive angle to this.” She paused. “I don’t need to elaborate on that, do I?”

Alex shook his head. “You’ll never lose me.”

“Nor will I ever want anyone the way I want you. I am a creature of lust. I enjoy what I am, and I make no apologies for it. I want to play with other men from time to time, but my desire for you runs much deeper. As I said when we first spoke on this, what binds you, Rachel and I together is far beyond magic.”

He took in a deep, thoughtful breath. “We still need to set some actual rules. I need boundaries.”

“We both need boundaries.” Lorelei turned to look toward the building and an approaching white light as she spoke.

“Can it wait ‘til after my bullshit’s finished?” Rachel asked wearily. She strode into their arms, resting her head on Alex’s shoulder.

“Sure,” Alex said, glad to be of comfort. “Is there anything we can do?”

Rachel sniffed a bit, squeezing both him and Lorelei. “No,” she sighed, “just deal with the mortal stuff here and let me deal with fuckheaded asshat Donald. And I would appreciate it if you’d go home and cuddle or sixty-nine or something until I’m back,” she chuckled. “The good vibes would
help me through this.”

“Well, if it’s a chance to be supportive…” Alex grinned at Lorelei.

“Donald is in some manner of captivity, I presume?” asked the succubus.

“Yeah, he’s gone. Marvin and Jon offered to take care of it.” She didn’t bother to explain who they might be. “This is such a mess.”