Natural Consequences (69 page)

“Look, I said it was dumb, alright?” he retorted. “I just got carried away in the moment!” He glanced over his shoulder at the other guys, who kept watch at the window in the other corner of the office. “Don’t tell me you guys wouldn’t!”

Drew and Jason shared an uneasy look. “No way, man,” Drew vowed.

“Never,” Jason shook his head.

“I mean, she’s like an older sister to us.”

“Yeah. We
respect
her.”

“Totally, dawg.”

Bridger scowled. “Oh, you are so full of—!” Bullets crashed through the window behind and above him. Bridger dropped to the floor.

“You’re the occult expert here,” Amber said. “Don’t you have anything mystic you can do to help?”

“I’m not that kind of occultist.”

“Oh, what, did you use up all your mojo with Lorelei?”

Wade pulled back from the window to reload. “Kids,” he said, “can we let that go f’r now? Ah ain’t got much ammo, an’ this fight may go—“

The crash down the hall grabbed everyone’s attention. Drew slapped Jason’s shoulder and moved away from the wall with his buddy in tow. “We’re on it,” he grunted.

“You’ve only got one gun between you!” objected Amber.

“Probably won’t do us any good, anyway,” Jason muttered as they left.

They didn’t have to go far. Staying low and sticking close together, they found flashes of orange light against the far wall from the broad office pool and heard accompanying swearing and growls. Jason looked back to Drew. “Rachel?” he asked.

The doors burst open as a mass of brown fur crashed through them and into the opposite wall. It slumped to the floor, shaken and bloodied.

“Shit! Werewolf!” blurted Jason. His gun came up as the thing reared its ugly head and snarled at them.

Then
a heavy old typewriter flew through the air to slam against the werewolf’s head, banging the other side of the monster’s skull into the wall once more. Keys and other components scattered everywhere. The thing went limp on the floor.

Drew moved in for a closer look as the fighting inside continued. Jason stuck with him, keeping his gun trained on the fallen beast.

They found Rachel inside, leaping from desk to desk to kick and throw abandoned office equipment at the trio of werewolves trying to corner her. Desktop monitors, old lamps and staplers became dangerous projectiles in the angel’s wake. She made an obvious effort to stay out of reach from her opponents while still delivering pain and distraction.

The guys bore witness to her prowess and grace, but also to her injury. They saw the blood on her dre
ss and the nasty wounds to her arm and her side. She dodged and danced, evading one attack after another until she spun and met a lunging werewolf with a downward slash of her sword. The flames cut straight through the monster from shoulder to gut. It let out a final cry of anguish.

One of the others caught Rachel in a bear hug from behind, pinning her arms to her sides. Its companion rounded a pair of fallen desks to charge in with both claws up for a vicious and potentially fatal blow.

It never landed. Drew launched himself across the office, delivering as solid a tackle as he’d ever managed on the field in high school. His shoulder and upper arm caught the werewolf and brought it tumbling to the floor with him.

Practice and training won out over animal dexterity. Drew made it to his feet first, spinning around for a sweeping kick across the werewolf’s face. The heel of his foot slammed right into the thing’s eye.

His luck couldn’t hold out for long, though, and in the next instant he was bowled over by the much larger and stronger foe. It tore into Drew with a single rake of its claws, eliciting a scream of awful pain.

Bullets slammed into it from across the room. Jason fired repeatedly into the thing’s mass, drawing blood and causing harm but not nearly as much as a gun should. The thing looked to Jason once, and then to Rachel—and found the angel breaking free of its packmate’s hold through sheer brute strength. She swung backward with her flaming sword, cutting the werewolf behind her down without a moment’s look back.

Her last enemy in the room had just enough time to turn and run, but by then it was too late. Rachel caught the werewolf by the scruff of its neck, heaved it up and slammed it down to the floor before driving her sword straight down into its heart.

“Drew!” Jason called, rushing over to him. His heart broke as he came to his friend’s side. There was simply too much blood, too much rent flesh and broken bone. Drew’s eyes tracked him, looking up with desperation
, trying to say one last thing.

Rachel dropped to her knees beside him. “No, no, no,” she said frantically. “You’re okay, Drew, you’re okay.” The fear in her voice didn’t match her reassuring words. Tears welled up in Jason’s eyes as he watched her put her hands on his ugly wounds.

Jason dropped to his knees at their side. “Can you help him?”

“Hold his hand,” Rachel said, looking at Drew with intense concentration before closing her eyes. “Just hold his hand and talk to him, okay?”

* * *

“
Joseph, you must awaken
.”

Hauser lay on the floor without stirring. Neither the erratic booms of gunfire mere feet away nor the occasional blasts of frighteningly close lightning and thunder roused him. His chest moved up and down as he steadily breathed, though no one else in the darkened office could see it.

Donald saw it all. He understood severity of Hauser’s concussion at a glance. He knew that Hauser would recover just fine, medical attention or no, but that he wouldn’t be roused for some time yet… without intervention.

Bullets came through the window, punching cracks in the ceiling tiles and causing drywall to burst. Donald had no fear of such threats. He ignored the bullets, and the mortals at the windows who so bravely fought back, and the action outside. All of it would be for naught if his charge did not take part.

“
Wake up, Joseph
,” Donald whispered. He placed his hands on Hauser’s head. “
This is your battle. This is your destiny. Awaken
.”

Hauser’s eyes snapped open. He looked left and right, taking in the situation around him with startled breath. Hauser felt for his gun, found it missing, and picked himself up off the floor.

“
You have all the weapon you need, Joseph
,” Donald continued, closing his hand over the rosary still wrapped around Hauser’s left hand. “
You know what must be done
.”

Hauser loomed up behind Wade
, Amber and Bridger as they fired out of the windows with their dwindling supply of ammunition. Hauser saw dark shapes and flames, muzzle flashes and clashing steel.

“
See the monsters. See your duty. The monsters and the demon are still out there. You must destroy them.
Hurry
.”

Without a word to the others, Hauser rushed out of the room. Down the hall lay a fallen man and the flashing lights and crashes of another fight inside one of the rooms. It wasn’t the way he needed to go. Coming to the stairway entrance, Hauser quickly worked to clear away the old and broken furniture jammed up under the doors. He had to get outside.

He had a way to fix this. He could still come out on top.

* * *

Alex met Unferth’s attack head on, stepping in close to change Unferth’s line of attack. He parried away Unferth’s sword and stepped right onto the vampire’s foot all in a single move, bringing his left elbow into his opponent’s side and shoving him to the ground.

Neither fighter relied on flashy moves or spectacular grace. They’d learned to meet and break an opponent quickly, so as to move on to the next opponent to arise. As Unferth stumbled an
d fell, Alex spun off his foot to face the vampire behind him—some pudgy old priest or friar clad in a dark mockery of holy vestments. Alex ducked low under the slash of the priest’s sword, putting his own blade straight through the vampire’s leg just below the knee. His foe collapsed with a yelp, clearly more startled than hurt, but it put him down just the same.

Others rushed in from either side. Alex picked the Confederate cavalryman on his right and slashed.
That left the other attacker unchallenged, but Alex had nowhere else to go. His parry deflected the rebel’s saber, but rather than suffering an attack from behind he heard a scream of agony. Alex stepped around his opponent, found Lorelei at his side with blood trailing from her taloned fingertips and then saw her tear into his opponent’s chest. The cavalryman’s voice went from the rebel yell to the high-pitched cries of a helpless victim as she quite literally tore out his heart.

Alex spared no time to watch the horror. He turned just in time to meet Unferth again, parrying and dodging savage blows. Others moved in on Alex at the same time, trying to take advantage of his distraction, but Lorelei stayed with him. He heard more than he saw, but even focused on Unferth he still caught glimpses as Lorelei fought and ended a violent parade of pale anachronisms.

Despite all of this, Unferth pressed on. He came in high, but Alex ducked. He stabbed for the midsection, which Alex parried away. Unferth’s blade cut slightly into the Venetian courtesan that moved in to aid him, and then the pair of foes wheeled away while Lorelei blasted her with a breath of flames.

“Where’s the rage,
 Skorri?” Unferth goaded. He made one attack after another, never tiring but knowing his opponent must. “Where’s your righteous anger for all you lost?”

Alex had other things on his mind. This ground was terrible. Too much loose mud, no place to get a firm stance. He gave way to Unferth’s swings. “Didn’t you get banished for your stunt?” he
shot back.

Unferth’s lips curled back in a sneer. “They cursed us for cowards and cast us out, yes,” he said, “but in the wild, we found power—or it found us! I have walked this world for all those centuries!” As Unferth shouted and snarled, his fangs stood out. “And what of you? Do you think we didn’t hear what became of you? You and your whore wife?” Unferth kept swinging. “Nothing to say about that now?”

Thunder rolled in the air. Another lightning bolt blasted something near the tree line, disrupting the remaining gunfire there once more. Alex stayed focused on his opponent. He backpedalled and dodged and eventually found his footing. He waited for another swing, parried it hard to get Unferth’s sword clear, and then punched right at Unferth’s mouth. The steel hilt filling his hand added weight and mass to the blow, costing Unferth several teeth and even one of his fangs.

Falling victim to the mud and slick grass, Unferth slipped and flopped onto his back. Alex seized the initiative to snatch Unferth’s sword arm at the wrist with his empty left hand.
He brought his blade down in a decisive overhand arc he’d learned fighting Gauls for Rome’s legions to hew Unferth’s arm off at the elbow. Unferth let out a shout of shock and pain, which Alex silenced with a kick to the jaw.

He followed up with a wicked slash across Unferth’s neck. The vampire’s eyes went wide as he fell back, but Alex didn’t let up. He slashed back again, aiming for the same point and striking true
. Unferth’s head dropped off his shoulders.

“I’m kind of over it,” Alex grunted. “And you.”

He had no time to catch his breath. A black mass of fur tackled Alex to the ground without warning, laying him out on his back. Large, clawed hands slammed down on his left shoulder and right forearm, pinning them both, but the worst danger came from the jaws that opened around Alex’s neck. He felt the thing’s sharp teeth against his skin, but they didn’t close. They simply stayed in place.

“Hold, or he dies!” someone shouted.

Everything ground to a halt. The guns ran silent. The thunder ceased. Only the rain continued as it had.

Alex looked around as best he could for some escape. He saw Lorelei nearby, with her two surviving opponents backing off to circle her with blades ready.

He saw bare, feminine legs walk past the wolf-monster at his throat.

“Is the lightning the work of the angels?” Diana asked in a loud, calm voice.
She stood in human form, naked and unashamed in the middle of the battlefield. “I should think electricity would not be the way to save poor Alex here. I grant the angels are powerful and fast with their swords, but not faster than Jared’s bite.”

Lorelei didn’t respond. Alex saw her eyes on him, but then realized he misjudged. She didn’t look at him. She looked at the monster holding him down. “We can bargain
if he lives,” Lorelei said. “I will trade much for him.”

A pair of wolfish feet padded up beside Alex opposite Diana. He glanced up at the towering monster. The thing paid him little mind, focusing instead on Lorelei.

“The angels,” Diana replied. “Can you call them to us? One of them scampered off, but the other one—the girl, Rachel—was inside, last I saw. I don’t hear anyone fighting up there now, but I don’t see my packmates out here, either. I don’t like the implications of that.”

“I cannot call them, no,” Lorelei said. Her eyes never left
Jared’s. “They wish no harm to Alex, either. The angels will honor my bargain.”