Good Intentions 3: Personal Demons (49 page)

Sammael walked forward. He needed to cross only a few steps.

“Open the door,” said Alex.

“But—” Zafirah protested, raising her hands as if to work more magic.

“Open it!”

“Fine,” said Rachel.

Everyone moved at once. Sammael rushed in to stab Zafirah. The jinn, in turn, conjured more flames as if to create a shield. Alex yanked her out of the way. Rachel moved in to intercept their foe, ducking her head and leading with one shoulder to tackle him, but instead grabbed him just under the shoulder with one hand and hooked her other arm under his crotch.

It wasn’t a move Sammael expected. The real surprise came when she kept lifting, spun, and ran him through Zafirah’s flames. Though Sammael was correct about her powers weakening outside her dominion, the door never stood a chance against her.

The two tumbled to the floor amid broken and splintered wood. Alex stepped out around the doorframe into flashing lights and thumping music to find Sammael’s wings gone and his sword a crumbling line of ice on the floor. Rachel, too, no longer looked so angelic. Nearby, the two bouncers who’d ushered Alex into the VIP lounge were slumped into some nearby chairs, attesting to Zafirah’s problems getting back inside to help. Beyond them, dancing stopped and heads looked up from tables and the bar.

“What are you doing?” asked Zafirah.

“Picking my battles,” Alex grunted. He rushed in. Sammael was almost up off his back before Alex was on him, providing a convenient target. Alex brought his heel straight into Sammael’s face, knocking the fallen angel onto his back once more. He pulled back the gladius for a downward thrust, hoping to finish this quickly and not caring who saw it. This fight was already too desperate to hold back.

Sammael’s reflexes recovered before the blade could land. His forearm battered the blade away with enough force to knock it from Alex’s hand. Sammael turned into the move to roll himself to one side and then halfway up again. Alex, too, made use of his own momentum, bringing his other hand around for a resounding left hook before Sammael could rise.

Practically any ordinary man would’ve suffered a dislocated jaw. Yet while Sammael jerked away, Alex immediately wondered if he’d hurt his own hand more than his opponent. Alex winced as the crowd let out oohs and ahs, fighting back the pain in his fist.
Aim for softer tissue
, he told himself.
No more hitting bones. Ow
.

His hesitation cost him. Sammael threw a punch that Alex only narrowly avoided. Alex dodged the second, too, giving ground and blocking a third only to wonder if blocking hurt any less than actually taking the hit.

The crowd stayed back and watched rather than interfere, but their presence made a critical difference. Now Alex merely fought a stronger, faster man rather than someone who could lift a car or shrug off bullets. Despite his offensive posture, Alex could tell the situation threw Sammael off, too. He seemed to expect far more of his blows. The cumulative punishment from the fight also seemed to have an effect.

“This won’t save you either,” Sammael grunted. He kept advancing and throwing punches too fast for Alex to counterattack.

Modern music and flashing lights aside, this environment felt familiar enough to Alex, or at least to the old west saloon piano player he used to be. People behind Alex got out of the way as he backpedaled. He felt the bump of a stool against his butt. The bar would be right behind him. He knew how to spring this trap.

Alex caught Sammael’s forearm in his next swing, twisted, and pulled hard. With his other hand, he grabbed the back of Sammael’s head and slammed his enemy’s face into the corner of the bar. His fingers clenched hair so he could pull back and shove down again and again, keeping Sammael’s arm immobilized all the while. “Nobody beats me in a bar fight, asshole!” Alex raged.

Back by the broken VIP lounge door, Rachel pushed herself up again. Zafirah reached out to help steady the angel. “I’ve tried to aid him, but the magic will not take hold,” warned the jinn. “I don’t think Alex can hold the advantage long.”

“Shit, he’s still got that fuckin’ nail,” Rachel remembered. She glanced around the room. The crowd hadn’t entirely left, but it was already thinning out. As she fully expected, she saw angels whisper silent encouragements to their mortal charges to leave. None of them came up to help Rachel, let alone Alex. As much as they might sympathize, this wasn’t their fight.

Glasses and bottles bounced along the bar with each impact. Alex snatched up a nearly full bottle of vodka and brought it down on the back of Sammael’s head, hitting him with the corner so the bottle wouldn’t break and he could use it again. The bewildered angel staggered to his knees despite every blow to his skull.

“Alex can’t hold him,” Rachel realized. “Okay. Can you give me a boost?”

“Nothing dramatic,” said Zafirah. “Not with so many witnesses.”

“Just hold the debris steady. I’ll do the rest,” said Rachel.

Within a few hits, the bottle broke. Vodka splashed everywhere. Alex tried to grab Sammael by the hair again, but this time he was a little too slippery. Sammael only needed that brief gap. Though Alex still had his arm twisted and held back, the fallen angel was strong enough to shove Alex backward.

Someone caught him. No, Alex realized—not someone. Zafirah. She caught him by the shoulder with one hand, resetting his balance as a white and blonde shape rushed past them both for another go at Sammael.

To his surprise, Alex saw a fallen barstool slide up into Rachel’s path all on its own. She planted one foot on its side as she closed with Sammael, hooked one hand up under his jaw and lunged upward. Rachel rose only a few inches, but clearance wasn’t the point. The dexterous move enabled her to heave Sammael up and over the bar, sending him crashing into glass shelves full of bottles. He tumbled to the floor under an avalanche of sharp debris.

The remnants of the crowd roared with surprise, disbelief, and more than a little bloodthirsty delight. Rachel didn’t stop for a bow. She turned to Alex and Zafirah and yelled, “Go!”

“Wait.” Alex hustled to the bar again. Until this instant, he hadn’t been able to spare a single second on anything but hitting or dodging. He never had a chance to reach inside his leather jacket.

The .45 was in his hand as he reached the bar. He leaned over and fired as soon as he saw the fallen, bewildered man pushing himself back up off the floor. The first bullet knocked Sammael back down. Alex didn’t think twice about unloading all four remaining rounds in the magazine. It wasn’t like he could miss a shot like this.

Frightened shouts and commotion followed as the crowd abandoned the spectacle. The appearance of a gun meant this was no longer an entertaining bar brawl. Even those guests inured to such violence recognized they had no stake in the outcome.

A familiar hand tugged Alex back before he could evaluate his handiwork. “We gotta bail, babe,” urged Rachel. Zafirah was already halfway across the nightclub floor, waving for them to follow.

Alex didn’t argue. “Won’t that put him down for a bit, at least?”

“Did anyone else see you shoot him?” she pointed out.

He let out a grumbling sigh as they ran. “Well, shit.”

“Don’t worry, you fucked him up. He’ll be on his ass for at least a minute.”

“A
minute
?” Alex exclaimed.

“Yeah! We did fuckin’ great!”

“This way,” Zafirah urged from an emergency exit. Any other guests of the club who’d gone this way were already out. She held the door open, bringing them into the bottom of a stairwell. Across the small landing waited another exit door, but Zafirah held up her hand before her companions used it. “We go up,” she said.

Alex grimaced at the flight of stairs. He hadn’t counted windows on his way in, but the nightclub sat at the bottom of a six or seven-story building. “Okay, then,” he said. At least Rachel’s touch helped beat back any fatigue.

“Allow me,” said Zafirah. He felt another hand upon him, and then everything in his vision became a blur. Air rushed past, filling his ears with the soft whistle of rapid winds.

The sensation ended as suddenly as it began. He staggered out onto a rooftop that held only a few bits of ventilation equipment and some cheap patio furniture. Taller buildings nearby offered a pretty skyline he was too surprised to appreciate. Stars twinkled peacefully in the night sky. Rachel and Zafirah stood right beside him. “What the hell was that?” he gasped.

“Most jinn can travel faster than mortals,” she explained. Zafirah raised her hands in the air and spun around twice. Sparks and smoke trailed from her fingers. “This will obscure us from onlookers in the taller buildings,” said Zafirah. “Stay close to me. We must be unseen. Alex, your nail. It will disrupt my magic.” Then she began waving her hands in a small circular pattern. A ball of flames appeared, floating amid her flashing fingers, though it quickly flattened and grew into a disk the size of a dinner plate.

Following instructions more out of trust than understanding, Alex stuffed his empty .45 back into its holster to free up one of his hands. He dug the nail out of his pocket and tossed it away before stepping forward with Rachel. Her eyes continually scanned their surroundings, including the deck at their feet.

“He’ll really recover that fast?” asked Alex. “What’s it gonna take to put that guy down?”

“Fuck if I know,” Rachel admitted. “Not unless we can sic an archangel or two on his ass. It felt like we almost had him at the casino, but I had plenty of help with that clusterfuck. Even then he got away from us, which was all he wanted in the first place.”

Unsettled by her answer, Alex glanced back to Zafirah and found the disc of flames was now half as tall as the woman who conjured it. The flames only flickered at the edges. Through the center, Alex saw only dim, shimmering light.

“Think of those you love most,” said Zafirah. “This will take you to them almost as swiftly as the magic that brought you here.”

“Are you coming with us?” he asked.

“No. I cannot. I must remain behind to close this portal. Do not worry about me. Many times, I have hidden from angels and demons alike. Sammael will not find me once you are gone. You must think of those you love,” she repeated. “Those besides Lorelei. Demons are more difficult subjects for such magic.”

Alex threw Rachel another glance, which she only answered with a tense but reassuring nod. She seemed to trust Zafirah’s ability to take care of herself. With that, Alex took in a long breath to steady himself, briefly closed his eyes, and tried to think of the other people in his life.

It wasn’t hard. A couple of them could work magic much like this, though generally without so much in the way of visual special effects. This whole mess started up because he wanted to help Onyx and Molly.

Zafirah’s circle grew. Her fluid, dramatic motions looked almost like a dance. “I do not know where you will appear,” she said.

Alex took her warning to heart. Rachel slipped her hand into his. “Ready when you are.”

“Then it is time,” said Zafirah. The circle stretched almost to her full height.

“Thanks, Z,” said Rachel. “For everything.”

“I am all too glad to help,” she said. The grin in her voice reminded Alex he would still owe her for this. “Now, go!”

Rachel gave Alex a small tug. He held his breath as they ran into the portal, having no clue what this would be like.

“Damn you!” shouted a voice. Alex turned his head at the sound, but then he was through the portal and gone.

Sammael flew in on his black wings too fast for Zafirah to do anything about him. He swatted her aside, flying straight into the portal after the others.

She picked herself up off the deck, grunting with pain at her bruised ribs and the bump she took to the head. The portal shimmered away, though it already retracted before her eyes. The jinn let out a tired sigh.

“Good luck, my friends.” Zafirah clapped her hands together. The portal winked out of existence. “I’ve done all for you I can.”

The boom of Amber’s shotgun chased another face back from the wreckage of the front door. This one looked human at a glance. She couldn’t say the same for all of them. The huge corpse lying halfway in and halfway out of the foyer definitely wasn’t human. Not with that sort of size or shape, and not with that tail.

Then again, at least the monsters didn’t carry firearms. Amber couldn’t decide which presented the scarier threat.

“Okay, I’m here,” Taylor announced, slipping up against the wall beside her. “Got the shells. How many do you need?”

“Take a handful out of the box and hand them to me one at a time,” said Amber. She tried to sound calm, though for all she knew that was already a lost cause. She also tried to keep her voice down, given how close they were to the enemy. Hopefully the gunfire had left the enemy’s ears ringing as badly as her own. “Jason, can you cover?”

“Sure,” said her boyfriend, right behind her the whole time. He knelt a little lower to see around her hip, keeping her pistol trained on the door.

“Don’t fire unless you see someone,” she hissed. “You’re suppressing, not sharpshooting, okay? Just keep their—”

He fired twice. “Shit! Jimmy’s down!” barked someone out in the hall. “I think he’s dead!”

“Okay, you’ve got this,” Amber decided. She kept the shotgun up with her right hand while she collected shells from Taylor with her left. Thankfully, she could slide each shell up into the loading port on this thing while keeping it trained on her targets just like an ordinary 12-gauge.

She managed three shells. Then a fourth. She almost had the thing fully loaded again before a rush of movement preceded a muzzle flash at the doorway. Amber pulled her trigger. Jason fired, too. Neither of them seemed to hit much, but the sudden yelp of shock beside her struck at her worst fear.

“Jason!” Taylor cried.

Amber couldn’t look. Her heart leapt into her throat, but she had to defend the entrance. She couldn’t turn to see if he was only hurt or if it was much worse than that. “Wade! Molly!” she shouted. “We need help!”

Behind her, Taylor tugged Jason around the corner. Pulling him only a couple of feet along the carpet left an ugly red trail. “Oh shit,” Jason gasped. Blood covered his hands at his chest. “Not good.”

“Hold on, I can fix this,” Molly assured him. The tension in her voice wasn’t entirely reassuring.

“Naw, Molly, you got the magic,” Wade interrupted in a rush. He pushed one hand down on Jason’s chest, laying his pistol down beside his friend. Amber’s shotgun boomed again. “All ah got is a gun, but ah c’n take care of this. Y’all gotta keep the bad guys out,” he finished, nodding toward the agent at the corner.

The redhead moved away. Taylor leaned in as Wade tore open Jason’s button-up shirt. “What can I do?” she asked, though she flinched at the sight of blood and bubbles coming from the hole under Jason’s left collarbone.

More gunfire covered up Wade’s first few words. “…get a credit card or somethin’ to put over this,” he said. “An’ we’re gonna need a little tape or some plastic wrap.”

Taylor pulled out her wallet and produced a credit card. Her eyes swept the increasingly demolished living room for the rest of what Wade needed. She looked to the counter separating the living room from the kitchen. Bullets kicked up sparks and knocked down a rack. Then her eyes came to Molly, who stood behind Amber with her wand in hand.

“Keep your heads down,” Molly instructed. She waited only a heartbeat before bringing back her wand as if readying for a swing. Ever since the window shattered, a strong breeze had drifted through the apartment. Now it stopped and shifted in response to Molly’s gestures. Taylor, Wade, and Amber sank low on the floor. An incredible rush of air tore through the apartment as Molly swung her wand toward the door.

Nothing in the foyer remained after that gust of wind. Coats on the wall rack, shoes in the corner, and every splinter and bit of fabric from the ruined couch flew out into the hallway in one great blast of debris. Even the body of the demon rolled out of the way. Surprised, angry voices outside the foyer suggested the mess was more than an inconvenience for the attackers.

Amber wheeled around the corner again with her shotgun up. Taylor darted into the kitchen for Wade’s first aid supplies.

“Stay here with me,” Molly warned Amber. Everyone could hear the edge in her voice. She drew her wand back again, this time with a steadier motion and her other arm stretched out toward the door. The air shifted once more, this time blowing from the hallway into the apartment in a strong, constant wind. “I hope all the neighbors are hiding behind closed doors. I’m not playing around tonight.”

* * *

The lamp didn’t break over Leon’s head, but it surely hurt. Others got it worse as the wave of clothes, broken furniture, and other assorted trash blew through the entrance. Most of it was frustrating rather than dangerous except for all the splinters from the door. Several of those struck the snake-like demon clinging to the ceiling. A couple more injured one of Leon’s guys.

He still had a handful of men and demons ready to fight. They’d have pushed into the apartment through brute force if it hadn’t been for the unexpected couch barricade that blunted their entry. The shotgun was an unforeseen problem, too. Between the charms carried by Leon’s guys and the unnatural toughness of the demons, nobody should’ve been vulnerable to that sort of weapon.

Leon made a mental note to take care of Hector as the next order of business, but he had other problems on his hands. The hallway was a mess of debris and hurt, frustrated men, several dead comrades, and a couple of angry demons. He needed to turn this around.

The wind changed directions again, whistling back through the apartment. That didn’t surprise Leon. Action, reaction, no big deal. He shifted his gun over to his left hand and murmured the words to a spell. A small orb of fire appeared in his empty hand, growing and intensifying as he whispered.

He needed only a couple of seconds to work this up. As he chanted under his breath, Leon nodded to one of his guys on the other side of the open doorway to make some trouble. Jackson acknowledged it, leaned up against the doorway—and then jerked out of the way as the snakey demon darted inside.

The shotgun boomed again, of course, this time twice in rapid succession. Jackson swung his rifle and head around for a shot, only to jerk back into the hallway with another boom. He landed on his back with part of his skull missing.

Hector apparently loaded his friends up with something more sophisticated than an ordinary pump-action, to say nothing of whatever magic he’d put on the damn thing.

The whistle and the rush of the wind died off. Leon hardly noticed. He kept whispering the words to his incantation, knowing he needed to concentrate for a spell this spectacular, but for some reason he could barely hear himself. At first he thought it was just the ringing in his ears from all the gunfire.

Then he lost his chant, and the rest of his breath. Air escaped from his lungs, leaving him silently wheezing. He couldn’t inhale. There wasn’t any air to breathe in at all.

His men looked up with similar alarm. Someone tried to shout but not a sound came out. The little fireball in Leon’s hand fizzled. He forgot about the spell. He had a bigger problem now.

As his men looked this way and that, jostling one another in near panic, Leon pushed past his back-up and rushed down the utterly silent hallway. He only needed to make it a couple of steps. The window at the end of the hall would work fine. It had to.

Once, while watching movies, Dutch had told Leon that a gun wouldn’t work in a vacuum. No air to ignite the gunpowder, he’d said. Thankfully, that turned out to be as much bullshit as most of Dutch’s conspiracy theories. Leon’s pistol fired as designed—soundlessly, but at least the thing worked. His shot put a hole through the window down at the far end of the hall.

The resultant explosion brought a rush of air and flying shards of broken glass back at him. Leon flung himself to the floor, saving himself from the worst of it. A glance back to the broken apartment doorway confirmed his couple of remaining guys were still there, though they’d need a second to get themselves together again.

They’d lost the couple of demons they brought along as shock troops. Several of his own guys were down. Nothing in this mess suggested Aaron’s end of the job went well.

“Fuck this,” he growled, bleeding from a cut across his forehead. Leon tugged his radio out from his jacket. “Coot. I’ve had enough of this. Send the rest of ‘em down. Now.”

* * *

“Shit. Must’ve opened up a window,” grunted Molly. “Fucked ‘em up for a second, though. I think there’s about four of them left out there.”

“How can you tell?” asked Amber.

“I can feel it in the air.” She looked back over her shoulder. Molly couldn’t make out much across the street beyond a dim red glimmer in the otherwise darkened office. Another frightening concern played out much closer. “Guys, how’s he doing?” she asked Wade and Taylor.

Jason fought for breath. His eyes darted around with worry. Other than that, he didn’t move. Wade kept at him with the plastic wrap Taylor retrieved from the kitchen. It was an ugly, bloody mess, but Wade handled it with a level head and confidence. “Ah’m jus’ keepin’ him together ‘til you can fix ‘im up with magic,” said the other young man. “Whatever other tricks you got up your sleeve to take care o’ them assholes outside, ah figure you oughta go for it.”

“Most of the good ones would set the building on fire,” the witch muttered. “I’ve gotta get to Onyx, too. Fast.”

“It looked like Drew took the other bad guy down,” said Taylor. She turned from Jason to the scene across the street. Whoever was standing didn’t look like Drew. She thought he might be pointing a gun. Taylor saw Wade’s pistol at his feet and snatched it up. Even if she could only distract the bad guy, it would be something.

As soon as she brought the pistol to bear, a mass of red scales and gleaming yellow eyes dropped into her line of sight at the window’s edge. The thing swung itself around into the living room with hungry eyes. Then it yelped out a painful snarl and flopped to the floor. “Guys!” Taylor yelled.

More swept in from above and from the sides. Some flew on demon’s wings while others climbed along the glass-covered exterior. Taylor shot the first one as it landed, needing no training to hit a target so close. Almost as soon as she fired, she heard the other jarring pops of another pistol, and then the shotgun once more. Wade had taken up the pistol Amber had loaned to Jason. Amber turned from the corner to help cover the window.

“The wards are still holding,” Molly shouted over the noise. “They can’t come in without the wards hurting them!”

“It don’t keep ‘em out altogether,” Wade noted between shots.

Molly raised both hands in a dramatic gesture, bringing a furious gust of wind up along the outside of the building to disrupt the assault. All she could accomplish was a moment’s push and a couple more seconds of delay, but she could make something useful out of that—were it not for the enemies she knew were coming at the door again.

“Damn it, no!” she barked. Molly swung her concentration and her power around to the foyer once more. The windstorm blew the other attackers back a few steps. It wouldn’t be enough to take them down.

Only Amber’s shotgun could do real harm to the demons. The pistols Taylor and Wade fired had about as much effect as throwing rocks. Jason fought to breathe, while out across the street, Drew and Onyx were out of reach. For all Molly knew…

No. Don’t think that
, she told herself.
You can’t afford to now anyway.
Her heart pounded as she tried to hold off assaults on two sides. Demons attacked in one direction, wizards with guns lurked in the other. The rest would have to wait.

Demons and wizards didn’t scare Molly nearly as much as the thought of losing Onyx, or any of their other friends dying over this mess she’d dragged everyone into.

* * *

Fire seemed to be a major theme in Alex’s life.

His girlfriend could breathe fire. His other girlfriend had a flaming sword—usually, anyway. He met them both in a funeral chapel that soon went up in smoke. About a week after that, he found himself in some fiery suburb of no-shit-really Hell. He burned his hands to the bone with Rachel’s sword in order to get out of there, but the angel managed to make that right again…although according to a woman who claimed to be made of living fire, that little incident stained his hands forever.

There was the mansion fire, too. And the bus tunnel. And the first strip club he’d ever visited. For all he knew, the casino had burned to the ground Friday night, too. The alarm sure was going right before he found himself in the middle of some missile crater in Iraq.

When Zafirah conjured up a big blazing tunnel to take Alex and Rachel home, he couldn’t even muster up an objection.
You want me to run through a tunnel made of fire? Okay. Whatevs.

Alex and Rachel didn’t have to run far. The tunnel curved, yet he quickly saw its end in some dark room. That made sense, given how Zafirah couldn’t dump them into a crowded bar or a busy street. Not if she wanted the magic to actually work.