Natural Consequences (32 page)

“FBI,” Hauser declared. “You awake there?” He stepped forward, still ready to shoot, and kicked at one of the man’s feet.

The leg jerked to one side as the formerly lifeless body started to twitch. The man seemed to want to crawl away, but could not rise or make his limbs work.

“Don’t move,” Hauser ordered. “Don’t move or we’ll shoot. Got me? We’ll shoot you right in the head.” The twitching stopped cold. Hauser looked to Nguyen and Lanier to coordinate, and then stepped forward to grab the man’s shoulder and roll him over.

His head rolled limply on the ground as he was turned onto his back. Hauser and his agents saw angry eyes and a snarling face. The chain mail shirt under his leather jacket seemed somewhat suspicious. So did the ugly wound in the center of the man’s neck. The horizontal gouge looked like it ran deep, but he bore only traces of red stains where his blood should have coated his whole chest and pooled out on the floor underneath him.

“Jesus, I don’t think he can move under his own power,” said Nguyen. “Someone must have stabbed right through his spinal cord.”

“Yeah, but he’s awake and aware,” Hauser muttered, “
which means he’ll heal that mess with time. Get out your cuffs, people. We’ve got to get him secured before the locals show up.”

“What about the tunnel?” asked
Lanier.

“If we can get out of here before any cops check our van, we’ll just leave it for the locals. It’ll be interesting to see if they hush it up or if they react appropriately. That should tell us a lot about how much we can trust the department around here. Let’s move.”

* * *

With Alex in
rough shape, hospitality was not Lorelei’s highest priority. She led him through the door to their apartment and relayed her welcome to her guests over her shoulder. “The guest bedroom has its own bath and shower. Don’t hesitate to make yourselves at home, but please think twice before calling anyone.”

“No worries, I’m in paranoia mode,” Jason assured her as he and Amber followed. Onyx and Molly trailed behind, both of them watchful and serious. They closed and locked the door behind them. No one turned on the lights. Jason immediately went to the windows to draw the blinds.

Lorelei turned to the witches. “Any defenses you can erect are of the greatest importance,” she said, her tone clearly marking it as a request rather than presuming to give orders. “If they knew we would be at the party, they may well know where we live. Whatever you need to move, whatever mess you might need to make, go right ahead. We trust your judgment.” Then she guided Alex down the hall and into the master bedroom and called out, “I’ll be out in a few minutes” before closing the door behind them.

“Wait,”
Alex grunted, turning back toward the door, “we shouldn’t—“

“Ssshh, Alex, trust in our friends and our home,” she told him softly, stepping in close. “We bought this place for more than just comfort. Molly and Onyx are as talented as any
sorcerers I have ever met.”

The bedroom remained dark. Lorelei stood near enough to brush her cheek against his
. He felt her breath on his lips as she spoke. Her hands gently touched his arms, which stayed stiff against his sides to hold up the weapons he hid within his soaked bathrobe. “You remember Onyx, don’t you? And Molly?”

“Y-yes. Yeah,” he swallowed. Though the room was warm, as was the car ride over, the cold of the night and the wetness of his clothing
kept him shivering.

“Do you remember me?” she asked.

His mouth wavered. He felt her lips upon his, gently providing a tender and effective reminder. It was only a simple kiss, but there was no mistaking her lips for anyone else’s. The kiss warmed him.

“I feel like I’m about to die again,” he confessed. “Any second. Like the fight’s not over. I can’t…”

“You are home with me, love,” Lorelei assured him, her voice soft. Her hands moved from his arms to the center of his robe, opening it slowly. “You must relax.” She reached into the robe, moving one hand across his chest until it came to the rifle tucked under his armpit. Her fingers slipped around the stock. “You have no need for this now. It will be close at hand.”

He let it go. She took it from him slowly, slid the safety lever and then let it fall gently onto their carpeted floor. She remained close, softly kissing his cheek again. “You are not alone. You will not die again.” Her lips pressed against his neck. “Not here, and not tonight, and not with me.”

Alex swallowed hard. His voice still shook. “I almost died.”

“Yet here you are. You fought and won. Jason
stood by you. Rachel came for you.”

She moved gently to take the sword. Hidden along his leg with no scabbard to cover its edge
s, the weapon had her just as worried as the gun. He kept the hilt pressed against his hip under his robe, separated from his thigh only by his thin pajama pants.

“Amber. Amber helped, too,” he mumbled.

Lorelei held her first suspicious response to herself. “Yes. Amber, too.” Her hand rested on the pommel of the sword, waiting for him to release it.

“I’m remembering,” he said. She placed her forehead against his and held it there, listening to him. “I remember who everyone is. I remember where I am. I just… I remember so much more and it’s all a jumble. And I can’t turn it off. I don’t want to lose my mind.”

“You will not,” Lorelei assured him. “I will not allow it. Trust in me. Trust in us. Let go, Alex. Let this go.”

His pressure on the sword hilt eased. She grasped the handle slowly and took it from him, allowing it to fall away on the floor. Lorelei’s hands moved up over his chest to push the bathrobe
off his shoulders. “You are still cold and wet,” the succubus said. She unfastened the two surviving buttons of his pajama shirt and slipped it off, deliberately touching much of his skin all along the way.

“You’re so warm,” he observed. “You’re always so warm.”

Lorelei slipped in close, pressing herself against him as she brought her arms around his back. “My world was cold before you,” she whispered. “I will let no one take you from me.”

His arms slipped up around her, holding her tight. She moved against him, reminding him of the
comfort and luxury of her body. “Feel me, Alex,” she said. “This is your life now. Not battle and lonely death. Those lives are done.”

His shivering
quickly diminished. Lorelei quieted his fears with her touch and her voice. “You have Rachel. You have friends, and lovers, and those who would be both… and you have me, Alex. We belong to one another.” Her lips came to his neck, just below his ear. “Remember what you live for now.”

His hands crept down her back toward her hips, coming to rest
once they’d moved a bit lower than that. He felt her grin against his neck. “This is…” he mumbled, feeling his desires stir. “This is probably a bad time.”

“I will never resist you,” she assured him, her smile coloring the tone of her voice, “but we have company. If you wish it, I will love you without shame… but
you
may feel it a bit awkward to face our guests after the fact.”

He let out another heavy breath. His body trembled anew, but in a vastly more pleasant way than before. He never knew how comforting
her seduction could feel. “You know how to get through to me,” he said.

“I understand the bonds we share. If I hadn’t gotten through to you this way, I would have
tried another. Now,” Lorelei said, “you need a hot bath, and I need you to tell me everything that you remember.”

*   *   *

Jason had the blinds closed. Amber found the controls for the fireplace in the living room and turned it on. She saw Onyx walk into the kitchen with a bag, taking up a spot behind the counter to work on something or another. No one seemed interested in turning on many of the lights.

Molly sauntered past Amber in her sea witch dress, carrying a plain brown paper bag and a hammer in one hand and a dining room chair in the other. She went to a corner nearby,
set down her burdens and settled to a kneeling position. Amber watched curiously as Molly pulled a big black nail from the bag and then began murmuring. It sounded like a prayer, or perhaps a chant.

Curious, Amber stepped a bit closer to listen in. She looked to Jason, pointed at Molly and gave a quizzical look. Jason
looked unsure of what to say.

Without ceremony or warning, Molly put the nail into the corner, right where the walls and floor came together, and started pounding it in with her hammer.

“Uh, hey,” asked Amber, coming up closer, “what’re you doing?”

“Home security,” Molly replied.

“I’m sorry?”

“
We planned on doing this in a day or two, but it seems kinda urgent now,” grinned Molly. “We’re gonna put some protections on this house in case we have any uninvited guests. Or people spying on us from outside.”

“With a hammer and nails
?” Amber asked.

“Ye
p.” She gave the nail a few more whacks and then stood. “Magic.”

“Seriously?”

Molly stepped on her knee-jerk response. “You got kidnapped by vampires and werewolves tonight, right? Anything else?”

“
I saw Rachel.”

“Sorry, I gotta
be dodgy and vague here. When you say ‘Rachel,’ you mean—“

“Full-on wings and halo and sword o
n fire, yes,” Amber answered. “I’m already contemplating serious psychotherapy.”

“Won’t help,”
Molly smiled. “Anyway, I’m Molly, and I’m a witch. Hi.”

“Ah,” Amber nodded. Her tone conveyed neither surprise nor belief.

“Onyx,” Molly called over her shoulder, “tell her we’re witches!”

Still behind the bar that separated the living room from the kitchen, Onyx held up a bundle of dried leaves on long stems in one hand and her ebony wand in the other. She calmly slashed the wand across the top of the bundle, which ignited with a flash of blue flame. Within a heartbeat, the flame died and the leaves were left gently smoldering in her hand.

Though startled by the flash, Amber didn’t jump much. Her hand went to her gun but didn’t pull it out. She forced herself to take a deep breath. Behind her, Molly began hammering the nail into the overhead corner. “That could be done without magic,” Amber said.

“Yeah, probably,” shrugged Molly.

“I’m just saying.”

Molly gave the nail a few awkward whacks, irritated by the angle. “You saw an angel tonight. And the werewolves. And the vampires, for what they’re worth.”

Amber frowned. “And yet here I am wanting to argue with this ‘magic’ stuff.”

“Sure,” Molly nodded. “When you live your whole life believing you know how the world works and then you see direct evidence
proving that wrong, it’s tough to deal with at first. Ayn Rand fans have the same problem. But you’ll adjust.”

Amber watched as Molly stepped down from her chair, picked up her tools and moved to another corner. “Just sayin’ I’d like more evidence than a stage trick,” she muttered.

“Might not get a lot more of that. Most of the magic I’m gonna do tonight involves a hammer.” With that, she turned back to her work.

Amber nodded, turned and found Jason in the living room.
She pointed at the couch. “Okay, no more stalling,” she said. “You need to explain. Everything.”

*   *   *

Across the street from the apartment sat a dark, mostly empty office. A lone table stood near a window partially obstructed by curtains. Behind those curtains lay a pair of high-powered cameras, a laptop computer and an external hard drive.

All night the rig on the table had sat alone, left unattended in light of the Halloween party and the absence of the apartment’s residents. It sat alone still, with the rig’s owners now scattered and focused on more immediate concerns. Yet the rig was set to keep rolling all night, and well into the next day if need be.

There was little to record once the apartment’s residents returned home and the blinds to all the windows were shut. Still, the rig kept recording.

Then a lovely young woman in Renaissance-era dress stepped out past the curtains, bearing a bundle of gently smoking leaves and soundlessly reciting words in old tongues.

Unbeknownst to her, the rig kept recording… until her ritual took effect, and the whole rig powered down on its own.

*   *   *

Neither her time at UW nor the FBI Academy led Amber to rely solely on her memory. She tended to carry a notepad along with her iPhone and utilized both. As a favorite instructor at Quantico frequently told everyone, “Paper has a long memory.” Investigations, interviews and interrogations had all emphasized the need to take recordings or notes whenever possible.

She had
no chance to do that here. That happened all the time, but in such an event she would simply write her notes as soon as she could. Yet she was quite convinced from the start that she wouldn’t forget a single detail of Jason’s story.