Good Intentions 3: Personal Demons (32 page)

“What the hell happened to me, anyway? How’d I even get here? One second I’m fighting at the casino, next I’m in a dumpster out here. Is everyone okay?”

“One of the bad guys hit you with a teleportation spell, something fucked it up, and I think so, but I don’t know for sure,” Rachel answered in sequence. “Onyx gave me kind of a tracer spell and I knew I had to haul ass all the way out here to help you.”

Alex turned back to face her with a smile. Then he noticed the ugly cuts, bruises, scuffs, and bloodstains all over her. “Oh my god, are you okay? What happened to you?”

“I’ll be alright,” she said, leaning her forehead against his. “I’m with you now. Shh,” she added, caressing his cheek with her fingers but holding them there. “Hold still.”

He did as she asked. An instant later, he heard the sound of an engine and rolling tires. The Humvee drove by within throwing distance, only to roll right on past. Austin still manned the machinegun turret. He looked right at Alex and Rachel, yet seemed completely oblivious to their presence.

“Those guys are some real assholes,” Rachel observed as they moved on by.

“Yeah, I figured that out a little bit ago.”

“What’re they looking for? Besides you? What did you take?”

“Shit, I already lost it. They—okay, you never explained how this works. I don’t know what you can tell from looking at me or what I need to explain.”

“Sh’yeah, right, like I’m gonna explain that to you now that your concussion is healed up,” Rachel scoffed. “You should’ve asked me thirty seconds ago.”

Alex rolled his eyes. “You really need a whole recap?”

“I do now that you called out my sketchy claims of omniscience. Sheesh.” Rachel helped him up, brushing off some of the dirt on his shoulder once he was on his feet. “Can’t game the system if you’re gonna start trying to piece it together. You might get too close to some universal truth and then it’s existential crisis bullshit every night at dinner forever.”

He threw her an exasperated look, then glanced up and down at her battered, disheveled appearance. “Rachel, what happened?” he repeated.

“Sammael. I tried taking him on. Me and a bunch of my buddies, right after Lorelei broke off a piece of him. It was a four-on-one fight and he still knocked the fuck out of us and got away.”

“He did this to
you
?” Alex blinked. “And he fought with Lorelei, too? Is she okay? What about the others?”

“Like I said, I dunno. Based on his shit-talking it sounds like she’s okay, but she might be a little beat up.” Her brow knit as her voice cracked. “You were in trouble.”

“I thought—” Alex caught his words, pausing and taking her hands. “I thought if we’re both in trouble, you’d take care of her first?”

Rachel shrugged uncomfortably, but her big blue eyes never broke from his. “I had more to go on with you. She wasn’t all alone. You were.”

Alex stopped. He couldn’t second-guess her. All three lovers had confronted this before. No matter how much they loved each other, none of them could be in two places at once. Not even Rachel could come to the rescue of both if they weren’t in the same place, to say nothing of her higher duties. “What about your dominion?” he asked softly.

“Other guys can stand in for me,” she said. “What about
you
?”

He didn’t have an answer for that. Rachel’s responsibilities kept her away from her lovers so often. No matter how much she might grumble about the job on any given day, her post meant the world to her, and Alex knew it. Yet here she was, having dropped everything for him.

Alex kissed her cut lips. She instantly responded with hunger and passion, giving no fucks for her wounds. The angel threw her arms around him and kissed back hard.

Nothing he’d faced today scared him anymore. The desert couldn’t stop them. Whatever trauma he’d endured, none of it would linger now. He could handle all of that if he had Rachel.

“Thank you,” he murmured when their lips parted.

“Anytime,” said Rachel. Her mouth twisted into a grin. “That probably helped
her
out a little, too.” She pushed against him tauntingly, confirming in no uncertain terms that she’d felt his stiff response to her kiss.

“Probably,” Alex chuckled. “No time for that now, though. Okay. You’re here. Thank you. Now how the hell do we get home again? Can you fly us back or what? Wait, if I teleported, then I didn’t lose any time getting here, right? We’re on the other side of the planet! How freakin’ fast are you?”

“Pretty fuckin’ fast if I can shoot straight from point A to point B. Faster going long distance, actually. Doesn’t matter now, though. It’s one thing to catch you if you fall or something like that, but I can’t take you far. Angel wings aren’t made for lifting. The main reason I can fuck around in the mortal world as much as I already do is the ritual that stuck the three of us together.

“We gotta find you another way home,” she said. “And if Sammael’s out there dicking the place up, we gotta get back fast.”

“Okay,” said Alex. “I guess we gotta get to civilization first, right? Find a town or something around here…for whatever that’s worth. Half this country is still a warzone.”

Rachel’s eyes lit up as she nudged Alex with excitement. “I totally know someone who can help. Maybe. If she’s still around. We might have to sneak across a border or two. I can help with that much, at least.”

“We don’t want to go to Baghdad?”

“Fuck no. The angel in dominion there hates me. We’re going that way,” she said, pointing to mountains far off in the distance.

“Um. Okay?” He took in a good look at their surroundings. Every vehicle in sight either burned from the drone strike or lay on entirely the wrong side. “That looks like a hell of a walk if you can’t fly me.”

“Fuck walking.” Rachel stepped up to the overturned Toyota, shut the driver’s side door again, and crouched down beside the roof.

“Wait, can you really—?” Alex began.

The upside-down Toyota wobbled slightly as she slipped her fingers under the passenger cab. “
Oof
, hold on,” she grunted. “I’m not as strong outside my dominion. Shit.”

“Rachel—”

“Nope. Nope. I got this. I’ve got it.” She winced hard as she strained, finally growling, “Motherfuckballs!”

Alex watched in awe as the petite blonde heaved the pickup over onto its side with a mighty grunt. She hardly even paused before crouching down again to push it over another ninety degrees, leaving the big vehicle bouncing on its tires as it settled back into its right-side-up stance once more.

Rachel slumped against the door to throw a proud grin at her awestruck lover. “C’mon,” she huffed. “I don’t know how to drive, so that’s all you.”

“I—you—holy fuck!” blurted Alex.

“Babe, I want to, sure. But with our luck more of these assholes would show up right when I’m about to get off.” She threw open the passenger side door and looked inside with a scowl. “Ugh. Sorry, fuckface,” she said to the dead body still lying inside. “You made your dumb life choices.” With an unceremonious tug, Rachel tossed the dead man out onto the dirt. She happily slipped into his seat and closed the door behind her.

Still stunned, Alex opened up the driver’s side door. Only then did he notice the considerable difference between his side and Rachel’s. “Oh, great,” he grumbled. “I get the bloody side.”

* * *

“Hey, I found it! Guys!”

Rico looked up from the map laid out over the Humvee’s hood. Not far off, Austin repeated his call. He jogged back to the vehicle, grinning with obvious relief. Dwayne and Carter abandoned their search along the other tire tracks running through the dirt and brush to regroup with the others.

“Man, I
told you
that fucker dropped it when he jumped outta the Hummer,” said Wes as he crawled out from under the hood. “Last thing I saw before they shot off the side mirror.”

“If I doubted you, we wouldn’t have come looking for it,” said Rico, patting his driver on the back. “How do we look down there?”

“She’ll run fine. We’re good.”

“Goddamn thing must’ve gotten run over,” Austin huffed upon arrival. “I found it halfway buried in a tire track.” He held out the large bone to Rico with a look of triumph. “Surprised it’s still in one piece, y’know?”

Rico looked the femur over with concern. “Shit, I dunno about that. Carter?” he asked, bringing it to the team’s medic.

“Yeah, that’s a chip right there. And there.” Carter blew across one knobby end to clear off some dirt. “It looks fresh, too. I’ll go compare it to the other one, but you can see how the color is off here and here. This isn’t from decomposition. I don’t think it happened in the airstrike, either.”

“It’s better than nothing, though, right?” Austin suggested.

“You found it. That’s what counts.” Rico slapped his comrade on the shoulder. “Okay, we’ve gotta get moving. If anyone needs a minute to get sorted out, do it now. I’ll call in.”

The team leader sank back into the shotgun seat, leaving the door open to allow for a little air until they headed out. On the dashboard sat the pieces of the smashed cell phone taken from their mysterious guest before his escape. They’d never get anything useful out of it now, but he knew who he and Austin saw on the screen. Who could forget that face?

Grimacing, Rico picked up the radio handset. “Six, Alpha, over.”

“Alpha, Six,” came the response. “What is your status?”

“We’re clear of hostiles for now. No team casualties. We have another problem, though. That passenger we picked up turned hostile.” Rico braced himself before relaying the rest. “He damaged one piece of our mission cargo during the fight. We lost him after that. Also, we have reason to believe he could be connected to our, uh…previous career difficulties. Over.”

An ominously long pause followed. Rico stared at the radio wondering how bad the news of damage to their cargo might be. From the start, everyone accepted the possibility that the bones would not be in pristine condition, or perhaps not even all together as hoped. Yet once they’d been recovered, responsibility for their safety was a different matter.

Still, it wasn’t as if Rico or his people could deflect bullets or rockets. Their superiors knew that. Bad things happened in battle. Hopefully, everyone accepted that, too—particularly the man on the other side of the radio channel.

“Alpha, Six. Did you see what brought down the Predator? Over.”

Rico blinked. At least he was still talking, so that was good, but the question surprised him. He looked around to the other guys. Surely they’d have said something if they had seen the drone go down. “Negative. We didn’t even realize it crashed. It must have happened while we were still engaged.”

“Acknowledged. Moving on. I’ve sent an image file, but apparently it won’t go through.”

“Six, Alpha, the on-board computer took damage. I have my portable on hand.” He slipped the laptop out of the backpack at his feet and opened up the screen. The satellite link still worked. “Try sending again, please. Over.”

A couple of the others settled into their seats again while Rico waited for the message to come through. Not for the first time, Rico wished their “headquarters” included a full team of competent tech guys. The bosses could arrange drone support, but not a dedicated communications specialist. In hindsight, while Rico didn’t miss all that much about the Army, he appreciated the spread of support services.

His message program flashed with new input. Rico opened up the video file to find an aerial view of their running battle, and in particular the moment Alex leaped out of the Hummer and onto the nearest pursuing pickup. “Is this the passenger?” asked Six over the radio.

“Affirmative. He turned up at the mission site and helped us escape, and he knew how to fight against our, uh, ‘extraordinary’ hostiles. We don’t know how he got there, but I don’t think he knew our mission, or who we were. Said his name was Alex. He may still be nearby.”

“Understood. Do not pursue or engage unless necessary. Continue on to the extraction point. Your current mission takes priority. We’ll follow up with this problem at a later date.”

Rico looked from the image on the screen to the broken cell phone on the dashboard. “Damn right we will.”

“He’s not the Angel of Death! Why would we even have one of those? That’s like having an angel of hemorrhoids.”

Rachel sat in the front passenger seat of the pickup, rummaging through the backpacks and other gear left behind by the previous occupants. The Toyota rattled and occasionally bounced as Alex drove through the desert. He watched for obstructions in the night, but aside from the occasional scrub plant or rock, the terrain was generally as smooth as he could hope for off-road driving. His lover seemed utterly unbothered by the rough ride.

“Seriously, he only got that rep by making bullshit ‘angelic appearances’ in front of scholars and monks in the Dark Ages. And what the fuck did they know, right? It’s like the Ninth Century equivalent of writing your own entry on Wikipedia. Oh, shit!” Rachel breathed, looking up from her work with wide eyes.

“What?” Alex asked, looking to her urgently.

“Look up his—aw, you don’t have your phone.” She abandoned her excitement as quickly as it had emerged. “Probably no reception out here anyway. I’m just thinking Sammael probably did write his own article. Conceited cocknugget.”

“So do you know each other personally?” asked Alex. He tried to keep his eyes on the road, or lack thereof.

“Yeah. That’s normal for angels, though. Even with as many of us as there are, we’ve been around so long most of us know each other at least by name and face. It’s a smaller world when you kick around for thousands of years.”

“And you all go by first names?”

“Well, it’s not like we’ve got family lines. I don’t have angel parents.”

“Yeah, but are there enough names to go around?”

“Pff. Fuck no. How many guys do you know named Matt?”

“A lot.”

“There you go. Same for us. We don’t have last names, but we all usually know who we’re talking about when we mention other angels.”

“And some of you have less common names like Sammael?”

“Yeah,” Rachel sighed. “All the other Sammaels changed to Samuel or something else when he went full turncoat ass-goblin on us. Nobody wanted to be even a little bit associated with him. Naturally he tried to spin that as a sign of how special he is.”

“You sound really pissed at him.”

“I am. He turned his back on Heaven and he’s been running around being an evil, arrogant shitbat since the—” she cut herself off before saying too much. It happened frequently. “For a long-assed time. Plus he punched me a bunch last night.”

“How well did you know him before he went bad?”

She rolled her eyes and sighed. “Eh. Not that well. We had a couple flings.”

Alex blinked. “Wait, what?”

“It wasn’t a big deal,” she said casually. “Sammael was like the village bicycle back then. Everyone went for a ride, ok? We’re talking about a long fuckin’ stretch of time here.” The angel shrugged. “It was something to do.”

“…wow.”

“Then he went bad and started playing for the other team. And I don’t mean the other team like he started bangin’ guys,” she corrected. “That wouldn’t be a change. Angels are way more open about that sort of thing than mortals. It’s not even an issue for us. When I say everyone fucked him, I mean,
everyone
—”

“I get it,” Alex interrupted. “You don’t need to elaborate.”

“You know what’s crazy about that, though? Everyone acted like Sammael was some risqué fuck with all these odd kinks. Half of ‘em weren’t even weird. Like he’s the only one who digs butt stuff, y’know? Some of us are just more particular about partners.”

Alex drove. She waited. Then his head twitched and he glanced at her, receiving Rachel’s best innocent-but-naughty grin. “I’m just sayin’,” she teased. “Four months and it hasn’t been a thought?”

“You never brought it up,” Alex replied.

“You never brought it up, either. Or maybe never brought it down.”

“I…uh…” His eyes flicked back and forth from her to the path ahead. His mind searched for words. This was not a conversation he expected. Rachel kept grinning as if to prompt a response. “It always just seemed so cliché,” he managed.

“It’s cliché?” Rachel laughed.

“Yeah! Seriously, guys talk about that like it’s the final frontier of a relationship or some shit, only that means it’s rare
and
expected at the same time. Like every other stupid double standard.”

That only got her laughing harder. “You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“No, I’m not. This is the bullshit guys talk about in high school. Or on the Internet.”

“Okay but we aren’t your stupid classmates or the Internet. Lorelei never said anything?”

“No, so I figured she isn’t into it. She knows everything about what I want. I don’t even have to tell her.”

“Babe, Lorelei’s into almost everything. Doesn’t mean she’s gonna push it on you.”

“Are we seriously having this conversation
now
?” Alex asked, though he couldn’t hold back a small grin, either.

“I dunno, are we?”

“I can’t—I mean—I’m not saying I’m not interested,” he stammered.

“I’m not-not-interested, either,” she teased. “Hell, angels don’t even use it like mortals do, so the sex is way less inconvenient. Makes you wonder why we even have one, though. But I couldn’t even tell you why angels are male or female in the first place. It’s not like we fuck to procreate.”

“Yeah, I guess that does…” his voice trailed off. He blinked at the desert in his headlights. “How did we even get on this subject?”

“Because I banged—”

“Right, right.”

“Seriously, if he hadn’t gone bad I’d probably have forgotten about it. He likes to bring it up against anyone he ever hooked up with as a way to push buttons. But like I said, way too many of us have had the same shamefuck in common to be embarrassed about it. I’m only telling you so it doesn’t blindside you if it comes up. The most random-assed hook-up you’ve ever had was a bigger deal than anything between him and me.” She looked over to Alex as her voice turned sad. “Lorelei’s a different story.”

Alex glanced back to her. “You said she jacked him up, right?”

“Oh yeah. She didn’t take him out, but she got him good. That was a long time coming, too.” She watched Alex carefully, though he had to keep his eyes on his driving rather than meet her gaze. “They were an actual thing.”

“Okay.” Alex shrugged. It wasn’t as if he didn’t know there had been countless others before him. “How much of a thing?”

“Off and on for centuries. Lots of centuries. She kept hoping he would get her away from Baal and then Belial, and he kept stringing her along. After a while, she gave up on hope and took what little she could get.” Rachel reached out to run her fingernails through his hair. “Then we happened.”

“So what else?”

“Eh. I could go into more detail, but it doesn’t change the bottom line there. He’s her asshole ex-boyfriend, kinda like Vincent is mine, only in her case it was more complicated since she had her bosses to keep happy and all that shit. That and I don’t think she ever called it love. Demons, y’know? She was never that naïve. But it was something.

“He was way better to her than any of her other relationships, if you can call ‘em that. When everyone in your life is an evil, abusive dickburger, I guess whoever’s least shitty to you can look like a real winner. Maybe even once you realize he’s just a subtle abuser instead of being overt about it.”

“Do you know why she never told me?”

“I guess she was hoping to put it behind her entirely. I dunno. It only came up when we were talking about the sort of things we can’t talk about with you. I figured I should leave it to her to tell you when she felt like it. I would’ve left it alone, too, except for how he decided to come around and assmunch it up all over the place. Now it seems like you should know.”

He shrugged again. “Given the circumstances, I doubt she’ll be upset you told me.”

“She doesn’t want to have any secrets from you, Alex,” said Rachel. “Only the ‘too much for mortals’ stuff and the fun surprise secrets.”

“You’re sure about that?”

“Yes.” Rachel laughed. “She said so one night when you were passed out on the bed and we were still screwing around on top of you.”

That put a grin on his face. “How often does that happen?”

“All the time. You don’t know ‘cause you’re unconscious.” She bit her lip, silently watching him drive. “How long have we got to go?”

He glanced to the clock, the gauges on the dashboard, and the horizon. “If I read the map right, we’re at least another hour from the border. We’d go faster if we could get back on a road, but who knows what kind of trouble that would bring. I’m sure we’ll run into one problem or another before we hit the border, anyway.”

“Leave that to me,” said Rachel. From one of the rucksacks, Rachel produced a short towel and a canteen. She unscrewed the cap and splashed some water onto the towel, then slid closer to Alex. “Gimme your hand,” she said.

“Okay? Why?” Alex asked, releasing one hand from the wheel.

“Because it’s fucking filthy. Look at this, it’s all covered in dirt and soot and blood. I can’t take you anywhere, can I?”

Alex glanced down as she gently scrubbed his hand. Though she’d healed his wounds and renewed his energy when she arrived, her touch still made him feel better, as it always did. “We’re both filthy,” he said.

“No, I’m only a little beat up,” said the blonde in the slashed and bloodied dress. Her wounds were closed and mending by the time she reached him, but he could tell they’d been ugly. “You rolled around in the dirt. And a car crash. But at least whatever dumpster you landed in didn’t leave you stinky.”

She couldn’t get his hands fully clean with only a towel and a little water, of course, but she cleared off the grime. With another glance, Alex saw the faint, mottled discoloration of his skin. It was a permanent reminder of one of Rachel’s real miracles.

His skin didn’t feel any differently than before that night. It was all still smooth in some spots and slightly calloused in others. Still, anyone could see the difference. Alex had to tell his mother and others that he’d had an accident with some acid in a lab activity at school. He couldn’t tell them about how his flesh had been seared away right down to the bone, let alone how it had been healed moments later.

He hardly ever had even so much as a nightmare about the whole awful thing. Rachel healed more than the physical injuries.

“So it only takes you a few hours to fly all the way here from Seattle, huh?” he asked.

“Complicated.” Finished with one hand, she now moved on to the other, which required her to move in closer on the bench seat.

“What’d you do, shoot straight through the center of the Earth?”

The angel rolled her eyes. “No, dork. I flew as fast as I could.”

“How many thousands of miles per hour is that? Do you fly around Seattle that fast?”

“I don’t have a speedometer, and no, I can’t get around Seattle that fast. It’s different when I have to cover a long distance. I told you before, each guardian angel has to watch over more than one mortal. There aren’t enough guardians to go around. But mortals move. Sometimes they move pretty damn far. And it’s only worse these days.”

“You’re not a guardian anymore, though.”

Rachel turned to wiping down his neck and face. “Holding dominion isn’t that different.”

“You probably don’t have much reason to fly long distance in that job, though, right?” He came back to one of the questions that had stuck with him since she showed up. “How much trouble will you be in for this?”

“I dunno. We’ll see. Maybe none, maybe a lot. I didn’t leave the city undefended. And it isn’t like I’ve been slacking. The place is in way better shape than it was when I got the job.
Someone
helped me clear out a lot of supernatural garbage,” she added, stroking his jaw with one finger. “A couple someones. Sexy someones, too.”

“What about Lorelei, though?” Alex asked softly. “Sammael sounds like a pretty big threat. And it sounds like it might be pretty personal between him and Lorelei.”

“Sure, but I fucked him up pretty good, after Lorelei got some nasty licks in. Nastier than mine, really. She can look out for herself, and she isn’t alone. She’s with good people. The same ones whose first reaction to seeing you get kidnapped by vampires was to cram a flaming SUV up the bad guys’ asses. She’s with the witches, too. Maybe I thought fast, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t think it through,” she assured him.

“I’m obviously not complaining,” said Alex. “It’s gotta be as tough for either of you to make a call like that as it would be for me.”

“Yeah. It’s the only regret I have about us,” Rachel agreed. “That and my job.”

Alex shook his head. “That’s too important to regret. You know we’re never gonna hold that against you, right?”

“Yeah. Still. I don’t spend enough time with you,” she said, now rubbing the towel against him more out of affection than any effort to clean off his skin.

“Even a little means a lot. Always does.” His voice stayed low. Even with the running engine and the occasional bumps from the terrain, the moment felt intimate.