Good Intentions 3: Personal Demons (56 page)

Temptation loomed only inches away. Conversations in bed had established laughing yet compelling rules about such things. A discussion in a battered pickup truck made other interests more explicit. Alex pulled his knees under himself for a little steady support before subjecting Rachel to an impulsive, naughty escalation of oral intimacy.

“Oh, you fucking perv!” she yelped, though he immediately felt her hand on the back of his head with the same encouragement he’d gotten from Lorelei.

He didn’t let up. Rachel trembled with pleasure until Lorelei slipped one expert hand under the angel’s groin to attack other intimate flesh. Once her fingers pressed inward with perfect familiarity, the angel whimpered and shook. Penetrated by one lover and tortured by another’s tongue, Rachel melted down into gasps and cries of orgasm.

Lorelei settled Rachel against herself as the blonde’s spasms subsided, deliberately keeping her legs spread. “My love,” Lorelei said into her ear, her voice still soft. “Alex and I are in need of answers. May we use you?”

The angel nuzzled her neck. Her voice wavered with aftershocks: “Do I ever say no to you?”

Lustful eyes looked back at Alex from under Rachel’s hair. He shifted up onto his knees again. Lorelei guided Rachel’s hips back to meet his. By now, nobody needed further warm-up play. The first touch of his cock made Rachel twitch with excitement, but as he sank into her the pair sighed with as much relief as pleasure. Rachel soon pushed back to meet his every thrust, gasping with him in primal need.

Beneath her, Lorelei welcomed the sensation of the angel’s skin against her own. She took full advantage of the chance to tease and arouse her further as Alex gave in to his desires. She soaked in the power he provided. The succubus curse remained and still rewarded her.

The sensual pleasures of their other mystic bond felt distant. They came as mere echoes compared to the clarity she once felt from his intimacies with others.

She thought those diminished sensations would bring disappointment. Instead, Lorelei felt content, even comforted. The change confirmed her newfound freedom. All of their other joys remained.

Alex knew none of this yet. He could hardly think enough to ask a question, anyway. Lorelei gave no hint of anything but full engagement. Beyond that, Rachel consumed his every sense. Her voice, her beautiful body slamming against his hips, and the touch of her skin against his all beckoned to his deep, loving urge to fuck her senseless.

Primed and subjected to superior numbers once again, Rachel melted down into a second climax before Alex reached his. Her whimpers and shudders came as a reward. Lorelei welcomed her with soothing arms and possessive kisses.

After a moment to cool down, Rachel slipped off of Lorelei and curled up beside her. She mumbled out an affectionate request: “Your turn now, right?”

Alex moved in, not waiting for her answer. The demon’s smile, her welcoming arms, and her silken flesh spoke for themselves. Lorelei wanted him as much as ever, mastery or no.

* * *

“I’m not fired. I’m not laid off. I’m ‘
taking a step back from my duties while things are stable
,’” Rachel grumbled. She sat against the headboard with her arms folded under her breasts and a scowl on her face. “Kinda like how every mortal politician fuck-up decides they need to ‘spend time with their family,’ only without the non-apology bullshit.”

“So what are you going to be doing now?” asked Alex, lying on the bed beside her.

“Now I’m going back to being a guardian. They’ll give me people to watch over. You could call it a caseload if you want a prosaic term. A smaller one than most, too, given my ‘special circumstances’ or whatever you call it when your significant others keep getting into high-stakes insanity. Sammael fucked up a couple of guardian angels back at the casino, for one thing. Somebody’s gotta share that burden until they heal up again. I’ll be part of that. Then they’ll find more for me to do.”

“Wait. We collectively saved the city from some fucked-up demon infiltration and took out a couple
more
heavy hitters from your rival team, and they’re saying you’re a fuck-up and demoting you back to guardian?”

“No. They’re not saying it. They’re only implying it. Most angels won’t admit it, but we’re as prone to that sort of shit as mortals. What they
said
was I’ve done such great things here we can afford to have someone else take over in dominion while I take care of my own problems. I improved my way out of my own job. Now I know how half of Generation X feels.”

“What problems?” Alex asked. He turned his gaze from the ceiling when she didn’t answer right away and found her looking at him.

“You,” she said. “You and Lorelei. And that’s the most insulting part of it all. You two aren’t my problems. You’re my greatest fucking triumphs and the best parts of my life. Anyone who doesn’t see that can kiss my entire ass.”

He blinked. She grinned. “Okay maybe I should be a little more selective with that phrase after tonight,” she said.

Alex laughed. He understood her frustrations, but he immediately saw the potential upside as well. “So you really will be able to spend more time with the family?”

“Yep. I’ll still be in and out and all over the place, but it won’t be as bad as before. I won’t be so tied down to Seattle, either. That way if you wind up on the other side of the planet again it isn’t a scandal if I gotta go after you.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” said Alex.

“It’s still a demotion and it still sucks,” the angel grumbled. Her eyes wandered across his body. The bedroom door opened, drawing her attention to the woman in the short, silk robe coming in to join them. “But I’m willing to be convinced of the bright side.”

“Is something up?” Alex asked their other partner.

Lorelei held up her phone before setting it onto the nightstand. “I wanted to check up on a few things. Our insurance company will likely be reluctant to cover our losses unless I pay a visit in person. Between that and settling up with our neighbors to keep them all happy, I may no longer be a multi-millionaire.”

“Wow, really?”

“For a short while, at least. Enjoy the break from your working-class guilt while it lasts.” She set the phone on the nightstand before sliding onto the bed. “The money is only a passing concern. Our losses are light compared to the danger we faced. As long as everyone we love is alive and in one piece, I’m content to accept every other price we have paid.”

“Fuckin’ amen to that,” Rachel agreed.

Alex smiled, though it soon faded against another thought: “I wonder what Zafirah’s gonna want?”

“Mr. Rico, I have some associates with me to hear your report. You may consider them fully cleared to hear anything and everything regarding your team or the mission. We all understand there were complications. To make sure we’re on the same page, let’s start with the final status of your mission and we’ll take it from there.”

Naturally, Rico saw neither his employer nor the associates. The small, sparsely-decorated briefing room held only Rico and his surviving teammates. They sat at a long table staring at the default US Air Force workstation “wallpaper” projected onto a screen behind the podium. Three faceless user icons lined the left side of the screen, each with a generic username displayed underneath. He couldn’t even tell which one represented his employer.

Rico had no choice but to leave security for communications in his employer’s hands. He didn’t feel thrilled about that given how the mission turned out.

“Yes, sir,” Rico replied. “The mission is accomplished with two KIA, two injured, and one…betrayal,” he added with a grimace. “Our local interpreter turned out to be some sort of fire monster in disguise. He betrayed us at the target site as we moved in to retrieve the package and briefly captured us with the aid of the hostiles on site. Those same hostiles had already been killed in the Predator strike preceding our arrival. I should note they still looked dead while they attacked us, sir. Zombies or something.”

“Ghuls,” corrected a new, artificially modulated voice on the line. Rico couldn’t even guess at the speaker’s gender. “You encountered spirits inhabiting the bodies of the dead. The correct term is ghul.”

“I’m afraid that’s outside my experience,” said Rico. “Our occult expert was the first one killed by our interpreter.”

“His name was Yusuf?” asked the voice.

“That’s how we knew him during the war, yes. He didn’t offer any correction to that when he turned into a monster and attacked us.” Rico waited for further questions. He glanced to Dwayne, Wes, and a still very bruised Austin sitting beside him. Behind them, Carter reclined with his broken fingers finally in a proper wrap. Given his broken nose, his face didn’t look all that much better than Dwayne’s. None expected to speak, but all had to be present in case they were needed.

“Let’s return to the summary, Mr. Rico,” said the more familiar voice of his employer.

“Yes, sir. ‘Yusuf’ and his ‘ghuls’ killed two of my teammates and captured the rest of us. We escaped with the aid of a civilian, presumably American. He claimed to have wound up in the area through magic and he clearly knew how to handle himself in a fight with monsters and magic. Yusuf seemed reluctant to tangle with him. If he hadn’t shown up, I don’t know how we would’ve gotten out of there.”

The screen shifted to an overhead recording of the team’s running battle through the desert. Rather than following on the team’s Humvee, the camera focused on a smoking, overturned Toyota just past a fresh crater. Unsurprisingly, the images were much clearer than the black and white battle footage the Department of Defense provided to civilian media outlets.

Within seconds, the picture zoomed in on a figure crawling out of the pickup truck. It froze on a single frame of the young man’s face. “Is this the civilian in question?” asked Rico’s employer.

“Yes, sir. White male, late teens or very early twenties, said his name was Alex. Seemed like a west coast accent.” Rico paused. “He carried a sword. Something short. And a .45.”

“Please continue.”

“He didn’t offer up much information about himself or how he got there, sir. We played it as friendly as we could, seeing as how he was so useful, but we dodged his questions and so he dodged ours. Right before we encountered those hostiles on the screen there, one of my men saw him looking at a picture of a woman on his cell phone. He grabbed the phone and handed it to me. Both of us recognized the woman as our previous C.O.’s mistress, sir. She was the last person with him before he died.”

“We’re aware of the story and the repercussions, Mr. Rico,” assured his employer. “Go on.”

“We asked who she was and how he knew her. That’s when he went berserk on us. He fought with us and managed to destroy the cell phone.”

“And that’s when he tampered with the package?”

Rico let out a tense breath. “Yes, sir. He used one of the bones as a weapon before his escape. Right in the middle of those other guys chasing us.”

“You said the package was damaged in this fight?”

“Affirmative. There’s a slight chip on the low end of the right femur, sir. Specifically the…I’m sorry, Carter?”

“Lateral condyle of the right femur, sir,” Carter put in. “About two millimeters by—”

“You’re sure?” asked the distorted voice.

“I’m afraid so,” Rico confirmed. “We have digital photos we can send over if needed.”

“And the rest of the package?”

“Pristine condition, sir. All two hundred and six bones are present and accounted for. We’ve checked thoroughly.”

No one spoke for several seconds. Finally, the distorted voice said, “Those bones survived the initial airstrike, Mr. Rico. They may be older than the language we speak. Yet you tell us one of them is now…chipped?”

“Again, you can see for yourself, sir,” Rico answered, though he couldn’t rightly be sure if he spoke to a “sir” or a “ma’am.” “I would imagine nobody ever used one of those bones as a club before.”

More silence followed until his employer said again, “Please continue.”

“We evaded and ultimately eliminated the remaining hostiles and turned back to retrieve the bone. We found no sign of the civilian. Once we recovered the bone, we continued on with the mission. From that point on, everything went according to the original plan. No further difficulties to report.” He felt no particular pride in that.
No difficulties other than how we couldn’t hang onto one fucking teenager
, Rico thought.

“Mr. Rico, we’ll need a detailed written report as soon as you can put one together.”

“Yes, sir.”

“We’ll also need a full report from you regarding this woman you described as Colonel Dalton’s mistress. We’ll follow up with what we have on the civilian.”

“Understood, sir.”

“In the meantime, please proceed to the final drop point with the package per our original plans. You’ll receive payment, medical care, and further instructions when you arrive. We may have another retrieval mission for you.”

“Yes, sir.” He paused. “For what it’s worth, sir: if you have anything on our intruder, we’re all interested in settling up with him ourselves. And the woman in question.”

“We’ll take that under advisement, Mr. Rico. I understand these issues are personal for you and your team. Proceed to the drop-off and we’ll take it from there. That is all.”

The picture returned to its standard USAF screen saver. None of the user icons remained. Rico turned off the power with a nearby remote. “Guess that’s done with,” he grumbled.

“Hey, when he said ‘medical care,’ he didn’t mean some regular civilian doctor bullshit, right?” asked Carter. He pointed to his bandaged leg. “They’ve fixed worse stuff than this for us in minutes before, but they didn’t call it ‘medical care.’ I don’t wanna be laid up for three months.”

“I suppose that depends on how long before they need us again,” said Rico. “You heard the man. Might be another mission right away, might not. Who knows? They’ve got other retrieval ops in mind and they’re on a deadline. I don’t know the details, but I know they’ve got a whole list of shit they want.”

“C’mon, man,” said Dwayne. “We got a plane to catch. Gimpy or not, you’re better off back in the States.” He wheeled Carter’s wheelchair up and helped the injured man shift over from the seat at the table. “Oops. Sorry. Knocked off your badge here.” He picked the plastic card up from the floor and replaced it on Carter’s lanyard. “Don’t wanna lose that. Saves us from stupid questions and pissy security guys.”

Rico shouldered the laptop bag and took up one of the secure suitcases. Wes carried the other to the door while Austin held the way open for his teammates. With the doorway open, they heard the sound of jet engines flying overhead. Base personnel walked the halls.

Virtually everyone else here wore a uniform of some sort, except for Zafirah.

She didn’t stand out for her lack of fatigues. A disguise might have been easier than complete invisibility and silence, but uniforms had become complicated things in the last century or two. Though it made her happy to see women in uniform alongside men, she couldn’t risk the fun of playing the part herself. Between the varying stripes on the sleeves she saw on some, the lack of stripes on others, the saluting, and all the other little bits of etiquette, she knew she’d get something wrong and cause a big mess. Best to stay unseen altogether, as she had in the briefing room.

The group slipped into a waiting minivan. The driver appeared to be military. Everything she gathered about the team suggested they once served as well, but no longer. While they had the credentials to be here and to expect hospitality, Zafirah grew convinced those credentials had been faked. No one here seemed to know the team. She suspected they belonged here about as much as she did.

“Take us out to the flight line, Airman,” Rico told the driver as they settled in. “We’ve got a plane to catch.”

With a wave of her hands, Zafirah made herself light as a feather and danced up onto the roof of the vehicle. She didn’t want to lose track of these men now. Not when they presented so many interesting questions about their tasks and their masters.

Zafirah’s face split into a grin. This would be fun.