Natural Consequences (70 page)

“Then how important is he?” asked another voice. Alex glanced off to its source. Wentworth and several others ventured out of the tree line, guns and blades at the ready. Most kept their eyes on Lorelei.

“He is important enough to give anything,” said Lorelei. Her voice dropped to a meaningful tone. “Anything.”

Diana gave a snort at Lorelei’s words. Wentworth scowled. “You know we’ve come for more than just Carlisle.”

“I know what you desire,” Lorelei said. She still looked directly at Jared. “Leave this place with Alex and I unharmed, and I will give you what you want.”

Alex
felt the teeth slowly ease up.

“The angels will appear, then,” demanded Wentworth. “The angels
and any mortals hiding inside. All of them. They will surrender themselves immediately.”

“Little vampire,” Lorelei
said without looking his way, “I do not bargain with you.”

“No, no, he’s got a point,” said Diana. “I think we can all… wait.” Diana turned to look at the monster beside her, then to Lorelei and her packmate once again. “
Jared?” she asked.

Jared
didn’t look at her. His jaws came off Alex’s neck, and he uttered one of the few words his wolfish snout and jaws could manage in an animal growl of lust: “Deal.”

“
Jared,” Diana repeated, this time with a stern tone.

Lorelei favored
Jared with a cool, charming smile. “I believe Diana objects,” she said. “Will she be a problem for us?”

Jared
looked on Diana with murderous thoughts plain in his eyes. One of his clawed hands pulled back from Alex’s arm. He let out a low snarl.

Diana stepped back, ready to shift. “
Jared, you cannot believe anything she says! She is a demon!”

The other
two werewolves backed away, suddenly unsure of the loyalties of their comrade. One whined plaintively, reaching for Jared, but he ignored her completely. Jared turned in a crouch, orienting himself toward Diana. He remained in place over Alex, but now none of his limbs held his prisoner.

“Diana,” said Wentworth, “control your man!”

“Shut up!” Diana barked. Locked in a staredown with Jared, Diana’s shoulders came forward and then back in the beginning of her shift into a larger, monstrous form. She let out a growl that Jared matched, escalated to a snarl, and then met Jared’s lunge with teeth and claws as the two fell into a vicious tangle.

Everyone moved. Alex heaved himself up to grab at his blade. Lorelei rushed toward him. The other two werewolves, silently watching the tension between
Jared and Diana until now, snapped out of their fascination. One darted for Alex. The other turned toward Lorelei.

“Carlisle!” Wentworth yelled. “Get—argh!” Bullets
from the building’s corner window punctured his dead flesh and bone, doing little serious damage but driving him to the ground through force alone. The gunman to his right fared worse, taking a pair of rounds through the head and collapsing in a twitching mess.

Sword in hand now, Alex rolled out of the way of the first swipe of werewolf claws to come
at him. He brought his weapon up to meet the second, slicing into the thing’s hand. It jerked the hand back, but Alex saw little blood.

He saw Lorelei beyond it as she rushed in, meeting the other werewolf who rose to meet her with a blast of fire from her lips. The thing shrieked as much in surprise as pain. Lorelei
shoved the thing aside, still intent on aiding Alex. He knew his role instantly: Alex flashed his sword up at the werewolf’s face, backing up and keeping it distracted. Lorelei leapt up at the thing from behind, plunging her taloned fingertips into its eyes.

It crouched and turned, flailing blindly in Lorelei’s direction but touching nothing. Alex slashed
low for the thing’s knee. Again, his sword dug only a shallow cut in the werewolf’s fur and muscle, glancing off bone rather than doing real damage.

“How do we hurt this fucking thing?” he asked, jumping back when the beast slashed in his direction.
“Do we need silver bullets or what?”

“Give me the sword,” Lorelei urged. Alex tossed
it to her, blade upright, allowing her to catch it in a smooth motion. She raised it high in both hands and drove the sword down into the werewolf’s chest. It reared back and let out a yell of agony. Lorelei jerked the sword handle left and right, driving it to its knees and then to the ground.

A lone, smoldering wolf rolled in the wet grass to salve its own hide. Wentworth scrambled off toward the trees under the assistance of several of his remaining people. Though their numbers were diminished, Alex knew they were still a threat. He turned his eyes back to Lorelei as she rose from her gruesome work. Lorelei wrenched the sword back out of it, doing even more damage, but the beas
t lay still. “Silver is a helpful weapon,” she said, “but in the end one just needs enough force.”

“We gotta find cover,” Alex warned.

“Stay close to me,” Lorelei replied, taking his hand in hers. She drew him into a low crouch. With no one looking their way for the briefest of moments, she saw the opportunity to escape the center of battle. “I will conceal us,” she explained.

Alex and Lorelei turned their attention to the landing in front of the building, where
Jared and Diana fought in a savage tangle. Broad and powerful strikes gave way to brutal grappling with tooth and claw. Each bit into the other’s shoulder in an effort to reach the neck. Then the black werewolf got enough of a grip to rise up on his legs, slamming Diana down onto the concrete steps.

“I know we talked about
other guys,” Alex huffed, “but I am
not
okay with that deal you just made.”

Every bit
as weary as her lover, Lorelei gave a tired nod. They watched Diana deliver a frightful swipe of her claws across Jared’s face, turning his head and drawing no small amount of blood. “As I said,” Lorelei noted, “he must walk out of here first.” Jared stumbled back as Diana followed up with a slash across Jared’s chest. “You must give me
some
credit, love. I have my standards.”

In spite of everything, Alex huffed out a laugh. He looked at Lorelei, sharing a smile with her in the middle of the insanity, and then felt a surge of panic as white light washed over them and twisted her face and her body before his eyes.

Screams of terror from the vampires in the trees intermingled with the howls of the wolves. Alex heard little of it, frightened as he was to see Lorelei crumple into a ball and cover herself with wings that hadn’t been visible a moment before in a vain attempt to shield herself.

Just as before, the light
was harmless to Alex. He rose to his feet, snatched up the sword and ran for the man with the glowing rosary.

A large, inhuman shape
loomed between Hauser and Alex. The werewolf’s form trembled with the effort, with smoke rising from its fur, but the beast came on in defiance of its pain.

“Get back!” Hauser commanded. “Back! Why won’t—back!”

Focused on catching up, Alex didn’t notice how the light wavered and diminished with Hauser’s doubt. He saw only the monster raising its arms, and the threat beyond it, and had to find a way to resolve both.

Alex covered the distance just as the monster raised its arms for a murderous lunge. He reversed his grip on the sword, heaving up with both hands to run it through Diana’s hide from behind. Desperation and a running start
gave Alex added force, while the light of Hauser’s rosary depleted Diana’s strength. The sword plunged into her back and out her chest. The werewolf expired instantly, falling onto her side still impaled by the blade.

Someone yelled out, “No, don’t!” but it wasn’t Hauser. The agent had no time at all to react before Alex drove a right hook into his jaw. Hauser fell to the floor. Most of the light went out with him.

That brought Alex face to face with an angel to weakened and frantic to conceal himself from mortal eyes.

* * *

“He’s gonna make it, isn’t he?” Jason asked, holding Drew’s hand tightly. “He’ll be okay, right?”

Rachel’s hands remained on Drew’s chest. She never wavered in her focus. As she felt his ribs slide slowly back into place, the angel gave the slightest nod. “Yes,” she said, every bit as relieved as either young man. She leaned in to kiss Drew’s lips.

Hard.

“Uh,” Jason blinked.

Rachel pulled back from Drew. The young man was covered in his own blood and a shredded ruin of a suit, but at least none of his internal organs were still exposed. He looked back at Rachel in shock. “He’ll be—oh, no,” she gasped.

“What?” Jason demanded. His head turned toward Rachel, and then followed her gaze out of the room and to the office across the hall. He saw the flickering white light outside but had no clue what it meant. “Rachel, what?”

The angel leapt to her feet and hurried out. Jason blinked at the sight of Rachel vanishing through a solid wall and noticed that the light outside had gone out again.

“Did that just happen?” Drew asked. “Did Rachel just kiss me?”

“I think she did!”

“What the
hell
with those women tonight, man?”

“I dunno, dude,” Jason shook his head. He grabbed Drew’s wrist to h
elp him to his feet. “Maybe Alex is losin’ his game?”

“Naw, don’t say that.”

“Bro, you just kicked a
werewolf
in the
face!
Maybe Ray’s turned on by that shit?” He looked Drew over from head to toe. “You feel okay?”

“I feel great!” Drew shrugged. Then he made a face.
“ ‘cept for that smell, anyway.” He and Jason both glanced around, now aware of the smoke and flames of two burning corpses in the room, one of them quite close by. “Ugh,” they shuddered. Together, the pair turned to go, but came to a halt as they looked out the broken double doors.

The werewolf on the floor shrank before their eyes, steadily shifting into a naked, hairy, overweight white man with three days of stubble and a tattoo of a Mac truck flying a Swastika flag on his shoulder. He groaned loudly, muttering something about a fucking bitch, murder and his cock.

Drew and Jason shared a single, decisive look.

Billy’s eyes snapped wide when the hands clamped down on his wrists and ankles. “Woah, hey, wa
itaminute!” he blurted. Injured and exhausted, he could put up only weak resistance to the two guys who heaved him off the floor and carried him back into the smoky office. “Lemme explain, you guys,” he tried, “I’m just a truck driver, I never wanted any of this! No! No!”

They flung him onto Red’s fiery remains. He slipped and struggled to get up while boiling juices and burning flesh clung to his body. Billy screamed in pain and terror. He couldn’t get it off. He couldn’t shift. He couldn’t heal.

He managed to get to his feet, but by then the purging flames set by Rachel’s blade spread to his own flesh. Billy rose, staggered back and beat at the flames in panic.

Drew waited until he was lined up with the broken window to deliver his best roundhouse kick. He sent Billy out the open window to fall three stories to the ground outside, where he landed on a concrete sidewalk and continued to burn.

Neither Drew nor Jason needed to look at one another for the fist-bump on the way out of the room.

* * *

As soon as he could move, Lord Wentworth ran for his life.

He refused to give up the battle until the white light washed over everything. Though he saw allies and acquaintances he’d known for centuries die in seconds, the consequences of failure still loomed too large to ignore. Neither the lightning nor the demon and her mortal lover could kill everyone instantly. They could be overcome. If he could just rally his forces, if Diana and her people would get their act together, if they could find whoever or whatever directed that lightning… if.

But then the divine white light appeared, frightening him to his core. It lasted only a few seconds, and yet the vampires closer to its source than Wentworth fell and crumbled to ash where they stood. Wentworth’s own skin felt ready to burst into flames.

He admitted defeat. He’d been outmatched. As soon as the light vanished, he rose and ran
. He didn’t get far.

The girl in black appeared out of nowhere. She tripped him with a simple and almost childish sweep of her tall boot, sending him sprawling under the trees. He hit the firm root of a tree with his nose. Hurriedly rising once more, Wentworth’s eyes turned to the girl just in time
for her to smash a hand mirror into his forehead, shattering it into a hundred little pieces.

It startled him much more than it hurt. Wentworth looked upon her with some surprise. She stood tall and proud, with long and curly black hair framing a lovely face that showed an almost insulting lack of fear.

“You’re the one in charge,” she said.

Wentworth held his tongue. Whoever she was, he owed her no explanations.
He got to his feet, brushed the glass from his forehead—some of it would require a bit of plucking—and collected his nerve. “What do you want?”