Good Intentions (62 page)

The crash was a shock to everyone in the room besides Mol y. The SUV blew through the heavy double-doors, sending debris everywhere while running over or swatting aside half a dozen party guests. Most of them were vampires, but one was a member of the Brotherhood. She was struck by the right side of the bumper, which was already burning hot enough to instantly catch her dress on fire. Harrow was still on the hood. He was fullly engulfed in flames even as he took the full brunt of the crash through the doorway. When the SUV struck the stairwel head-on, the force of the impact flung him upward and back. The large, burning demon col ided with Lady Anastacia in a direct hit, col apsing on top of her and sending Stefan and Lord Blackthorne both sprawling behind them. Baal and Lorelei were both just far enough away to avoid Harrow, though they were both staggered by the impact of the vehicle against the stairs. Lady Anastacia lasted just long enough to scream in agony. Chaos erupted on the floor. The vampires, absolutely terrified by the violent appearance of a large, burning vehicle, scrambled to flee. Many of them shoved one another aside, and more than a few brought down members of the Brotherhood in their flight. Molly pul ed Onyx into the shelter of a slightly recessed doorway to keep them both out of the way of the mob. Harrow didn’t linger. The burning demon rose, roared again, and leapt through the smashed remains of the entrance. “Now?!” Molly asked. “Yeah,” Onyx coughed. “Ward’s down. Go nuts.” Molly grimaced. She darted out to where she could see up onto the staircase again. Smoke and dust were everywhere already, but it hadn’t spread so much that she couldn’t see. Baal was there, yanking on Lorelei’s chains as he turned to climb the rest of the way up the stairs. The young witch drew from her pocket a loose key, threw it up onto the staircase, and shouted a series of words in Hebrew, in Greek, and Latin. Lorelei’s bonds al snapped undone at once. Baal was left tugging on loose, empty chains. He spun in alarm to see her leap upon him savagely with her fingers extended into long talons.

“Go get ‘im, girl,” Molly muttered. She turned to get out of the way, only to find Mr. Woods there pointing his wand at her. * Rachel saw the bril iant flash of orange light from miles away in the sky above. It was just enough to get her attention. By the time the sound reached her, she realized she could see Alex again. He was there, and he was in trouble. Rachel dove toward the fire without a second thought. * The crash distracted Lydia badly. It was just the break Alex needed. He pul ed the .45 from his underarm holster and fired straight into Lydia’s chest. She stumbled back, dropping him, and before she could recover he put the whole clip into her. She shouldn’t have had a torso left. Alex knew—somehow—that the .45 could do an awful lot of damage, particularly this close, and it wasn’t like Lydia was a stocky person. But while she was clearly hurt, even to the point of staggering against the remnants of the corner that Alex had blasted to pieces with his Thompson, there was little blood. The gunfire had torn up her dress and left her looking somewhat punch drunk, but she was still standing.

Alex heaved himself up, grabbed her hair, and pul ed her roughly into the service room. There was a window back there; Alex grunted, “This is for Antioch, bitch!” and hurled her by her hair toward it. Lydia slammed up against the window, but did not go through it. The glass held. She slumped to the floor. “Oh god dammit,” Alex huffed. He picked her up by her hair again, got a good running start, and made a second go of it. This time she went through. * Baal let out a cry of pain as Lorelei’s talons ripped across his back. He staggered away from her, wanting nothing of such a confrontation under these circumstances. A second blow from Lorelei knocked him to the ground. He spun, kicked hard enough to knock her back a few paces, and scrambled to his feet to hurry down the hall way. “You know this is pointless!” Baal cal ed out as Lorelei, predictably, leapt upon him again. She had already torn off the muzzle, treating him to the sound of her bloodthirsty snarl. Her legs gripped his sides and her wings created drag both from the air and against the hall way wall s as he tried to move. It al owed even more of a chance to shred his upper body with those frightful talons. Rather than blood, though, what puffed and poured forth from his wounds was ash. “It causes you pain,” Lorelei growled. She punched at him, too, pounding his jaw into pieces with one hand even as the other dragged savage gashes across his chest. “You’l remember this part of our meeting while you stew in that stinking fortress in hell !” Baal stumbled and fell . Lorelei fell with him; she was running on rage and hate, pushing past al the injuries just for the chance to harm her former master. She had to punish him for coming after her. She had to make it as painful for him as possible. It was the only chance she had to ward off a future attempt.

It was clear that Alex was free, somehow, or at least alive. She could feel his desires. He no longer wanted to die. He wanted Lorelei. His wants were jumbled and fraught with stress and confusion, but the desire in his heart for her was still there. After al of this, he was still alive and he still wanted her. She had to make sure he could keep her. So focused was Lorelei on punishing Baal that she lost track of her surroundings. She wasn’t looking as the air in the hall way beyond them began to warp and burn. * Drew forced himself up off the ground almost as soon as he stopped rol ing. He hurt al over, and suspected he was even more beaten up than he realized, but there wasn’t time for that. He had to get to Taylor. As he scrambled to his feet, he was distracted momentarily by the successful crash of the SUV into the front of the mansion. Taylor was in the grass not too far away, rol ing up and clutching her shoulder. He spotted her mainly because of the headlights of Wade’s pick-up coming up toward them. Gunfire came from the pick-up as Wade fired over Drew’s head to pin down the guards in front of the house. There were screams and crashes from inside. Drew fought past the pain to rush over to Taylor. Then he heard that terrible roar again. The monster that had attacked the SUV came flying out of the mansion— literally flying—engulfed in flames and fixated on Drew. He ran, hoping to put some distance or at least a bad angle between himself and obvious doom, but the thing merely landed on its feet and spun to charge him. There was a flash of bright, white light against the beast, fol owed by a sudden wave of wind, dirt and torn-up grass. Wade’s pick-up braked hard and spun into the demon, striking it with the rear side and sending the monster tumbling away.

Jason was at the wheel. At Wade’s bark of, “Down!” Jason curled up to al ow Wade to lean over him with the sub-machinegun pointed out of the window. Wade blasted the whole clip at the stunned monster. “Got ‘im!” Wade shouted. As he pul ed back to reload, Jason reached out of the window with his pistol to shoot at the demon. It al clearly had the monster battered and staggered, but it didn’t really put the thing down. It still fought to get to its feet, shaken by every successive bul et but not at al finished off. Drew already had Taylor up. “I’m okay,” Taylor coughed, sounding not at al convincing but able to move on her feet. “Gotta go, girl,” Drew managed. He pul ed her toward the back end of Wade’s truck, heaving her up over the tailgate and into the hard metal bed. He didn’t even really have a plan; he just knew there was a demon here too big to fight, and a friendly vehicle potentially offering escape. As Drew hauled himself up and in, though, the pick-up shook. Drew looked up to see the thing standing over the cab, with the claws on its feet puncturing the roof to help it gain purchase. Wade reached out of the cab with his sub-machinegun again, only to have it swatted away by the demon’s tail. “I am Harrow,” it roared, “First warrior of Baal!” Drew didn’t really listen to the introduction. He didn’t really care, either. There was only one thing to do with the giant white demon-thing leering at him as if it were about to eat him: he punched it in its ugly face. Harrow reeled, blood erupting from his face. The blow did seemingly more damage to it than any of the gunfire had. Harrow lurched back, waving its wings and al its limbs to steady himself before it turned its attention back to the mortal who had so grievously assaulted it. Clawed hands and a slashing tail drew back to rain down Harrow’s revenge. It never had the chance. Drew and Taylor looked up at their inevitable deaths, only to see a flaming blade erupt out of its chest in the split second before it was carried off of the truck and into the air above them. They saw a flash of white wings and black pants. Harrow let out an unearthly cry of pain, but despite it, they heard a woman’s voice shout, “This sword’s goin’ straight up your ass, motherfucker!”

Drew looked on in awe. “What the fuck was that?” “Rachel,” Taylor said, similarly stunned. “That has to be—“ she winced as Harrow was shoved off of the angel’s blade right where he would fall through the roof of the mansion. Then the blonde dove straight in after him. “Has to be Rachel,” she finished. Wade jumped out of the car to retrieve his gun. “Nothin’ better than timely air support,” he muttered. * His arm was gone. It was severed at the shoulder, cast aside in a mess of ash and soot. It lay lifeless against one wall of the hall way. She had clawed out his eyes, pounded his chest until his ribs were a shattered mess, and slashed him open a dozen times. He screamed, or at least did until she tore his throat open, but that wasn’t the end of her assault. Baal had put up a fight as best he could. He should have had every advantage here. He was naturally more powerful, while Lorelei was already battered and weary. Yet her rage and ferocity were too great to overcome. Lorelei didn’t stop until it was finished. As long as he moved, as long as there was any sign of life in the body, there was the likelihood that some vestige of Baal remained within. If there was anything left of him in the body, then even that small portion could feel pain. When the body finally stopped reacting, Lorelei pushed herself to her feet. She breathed heavily, trying to maintain the energy that had brought her this far. Al she wanted to do now was col apse, preferably into Alex’s arms but the floor would do just fine. She couldn’t do either, though; she had to find her love and get him far from here.

The hand that gripped her leg from behind was much too large to be any man’s. Too large, too powerful, and with too fierce a grip. Lorelei stumbled and fell , twisting as she was dragged back. Where there should have been a long, empty hall way, there were flames and smoke and the overwhelming stench of sulfur. There were dozens of pairs of bright red eyes, near and far, gathered around the hall of a castle built from burnt bone and rotting flesh. In front of them al rose a tal , vaguely humanoid monstrosity with great horns, black wings and a tail. Tight muscles rippled across its body. Its baleful red eyes promised only eternal pain. Atop Baal’s head, as always, was his iron crown. “I told you that you would come back with me, Lorelei,” Baal said with ashen breath. Lorelei lashed at the hand, finding the strength in her terror to fight on even as she screamed. * “Gnrgh,” Molly grunted. She stood completely still , held in frozen place by Woods’s spel . “Make a move and she dies,” he snapped at Onyx. It was enough to stop her from throwing a spel of her own. The components were already in hand, but she couldn’t risk him moving faster. By this point, Woods was clearly on the lookout for hostile magic. Smoke was everywhere. Vampires, members of the Brotherhood, and now even the servants scrambled to get out of the building. Many had opted for the front entrance, only to see a fierce battle going on outside between demons and someone around a pick-up truck. Others wanted to avoid the panicked crowd. still others fought every visible enemy. Back down beneath the stairway, the two heavyset vampires in the antebel um dresses hunched over a suit-wearing man whose cries for mercy had been reduced to garbled, burbling

noises as they feasted upon his blood. Stefan and Blackthorne struggled up on the landing, while Molly and Onyx could still hear the noises of combat directly above them that were likely from Lorelei doing her best to kil Baal. “Hurt her and you die,” Onyx replied. “Then we’re at an impasse.” “Not real y,” Onyx said. “You kil her and then I kil you, or you let her go and we let you walk. Either way, I walk out of here. Only I should warn you that if you kil her and then I have to kil you, I’l spend the rest of my life performing every fucked up necromantic experiment I can think of on your ghost.” “You’re bluffing,” Woods sneered. His eyes were still on Mol y. “You two couldn’t even stand to let one of the servants here die.” “That was Mol y,” Onyx reminded him darkly. “Not me.” Inside, she felt rising fear for her lover, but their earlier spel s of deception still held. Woods hesitated. He blinked, glancing at Onyx, and then back again, but it was al Onyx needed. She pitched a handful of sea salt at him. It was more than enough to disrupt his spel and throw al of his energies momentarily out of whack. Molly staggered and fell , dazed by the effect of Woods’s spel . Onyx rushed to her side, hurriedly working another cantrip as she moved, but Woods had other tools at hand besides magic. He pul ed a gun from his jacket and leveled it at the two. Onyx threw herself in front of Molly to shield her. There was a loud racket that seemed completely out of place for his gun. Blood and bone erupted from al over Woods as bul ets ripped through him. Alex stood across the foyer just past the burning SUV. The Thompson was still in his hands. Blood covered his shirt and neck. A ragged woman in jeans and a flannel shirt fol owed behind him. “What the hell are you two doing here?”

he yel ed. “We came here to rescue you!” Onyx cal ed back. “Your—Lorelei is upstairs!” Alex started to run to her, but then stopped. For a moment he convulsed sharply. Then he raised the gun and pointed it directly at the two witches. “Alex, no!” Onyx yel ed. “It’s not me!” he grunted. Onyx looked up to see Stefan on the landing of the stairway, watching Alex with his hands out as if he were control ing a marionette. Blackthorne lay at his feet, a wooden wand shoved through his heart like a stake. Alex fired, screaming out in vain defiance of the control over his body. There was a rush of wind then, so strong that it whistled deafeningly through the mansion’s foyer and blew out the flames of the SUV and everything it had set alight. Alex was knocked to the floor, as were Onyx and even Stefan up on the landing. The bul ets never landed. Molly was sitting upright, blowing hard and releasing leaves into the air. Onyx pul ed an ebony wand from her knee-high boot and pointed it at Stefan as he struggled to stand again. She winced with reluctance and regret, but there was nothing for it; he had to be put down, and he was too powerful for half-measures. There was no incantation, nor any flash of lightning or blast of flame. There was simply Onyx, her wand, and her will . Blood spurt from his ears. More came from his nose. Stefan’s eyes went wide. He stumbled, coughed once with a release of even more blood, and then col apsed. Alex was on his feet as the wind having died off as suddenly as it came. “Oh thank God,” he sighed when he saw they were both okay. He rushed to their sides. “You’ve got to get the hell out of here!” he said. “As do you!” demanded the woman beside him. “Oh fuck off!” he snapped.