“You might have had a chance against me in the city,” Ms. Black said darkly, “but not out here in the woods. My first Practice was born of the wild.”
“Our mistake,” said one of the undead ladies. “We thought you were one of them.”
“Really, now,” grunted the other one, “we could all just go our separate ways. You’ve made your point. This doesn’t have to be a fuss.”
Ms. Black smiled. “The one good thing about tonight is that we’ll have far fewer of you to deal with for a good while,” she mused. Still holding the wand aloft, Ms. Black reached for the trunk of a tall cottonwood tree. Words in Greek and Hebrew came softly from her mouth. The vampires watched with alarm as the bottom of the tree’s trunk writhed and twisted. Leaves fell from above.
With a rush, one of the tree’s boughs lashed out at the pair. All of the smaller branches growing off of the bough had twisted into long, rigid spikes. There were more than enough of the nasty things to ensure that each of the vampires was impaled through the heart. Ms. Black waited to see the pair turn to ash, leaving their fine dresses hanging on the bough.
As she turned away, she found herself standing before a towering wall of fur. A furry arm encircled her shoulders. She didn’t have time to cry out before her head was twisted entirely too far around.
Ms. Black’s lifeless body slumped to the ground. The fur receded, soon changing to skin. Diana stepped over the dead sorceress and past the piles of ash and silken dresses to stand at the edge of the tree line.
In the distance, Diana saw Alex and his assorted companions make ready to leave. The nude woman decided to linger until they had gone. Once they were safely off, she would make her way to where she could make a couple of phone calls and get back to her people.
Regret for Diana’s earlier words crept up on her as she watched. She had been thinking pragmatically, concerning herself with her own survival and that of the young man who would so clearly make an excellent mate.
He would come around to that eventually. She would just have to get him alone to explain things to him. That would happen in time.
She had his scent.
* * *
Rachel had the mansion burning brightly shortly after the others left. Wade’s truck went up along with it in the driveway.
As the flames roared up in earnest, Rachel carried her heavily duct-taped prisoner to a spot at the edge of the tree line surrounding the house. She heard the sirens of distant fire engines. As Lorelei predicted, the authorities could ignore only so much despite bribes or compromised procedures. Rachel ensured the firefighters would find surprisingly little clues to the fire’s origin.
“I do not recognize the authority of any court of Heaven,” Lydia stated bitterly.
“Tell it to the judge, bitch,” Rachel smirked. She looked skyward, where clouds rolled in again from the coast. The angel lifted her flaming sword, pointed it to the sky and watched as a light from the blade shot like a flare into the night.
It wasn’t a long wait. The rest of the world saw nothing, but from over the clouds Rachel saw the appearance of a piercing white light. It seemed to hardly move at first, but that was how these things were done, at least where he was concerned. There was the first omen of approach, followed by a speeding trail of light-three lights, actually, as he brought assistants-which finally took on the image of angels with their wings fully spread.
The squires were both women. Naturally, they were also pretty. That was loaded with meaning, of course. Everything would be loaded with meaning. She gave up caring a long time ago, but tonight it amused her that he tried so hard.
“Hello, Vincent,” Rachel said with her voice dripping with such sweetness that it couldn’t possibly be mistaken for sincerity.
“Rachel,” he said severely. His mouth opened to speak again, but Rachel cut him off.
“What have you been up to tonight?” she asked. Her sword faded away as Rachel clasped her hands behind her back. She twisted left and right at the shoulders in mock shyness. The smile on her face practically outshone her halo.
“You know what my duties are,” Vincent scowled. “I suppose this succubus has transgressed against your charge in some way that merited your direct and overt intervention?”
“Yup!” Rachel nodded. She even hopped up a bit on her toes for emphasis. Her grin just wouldn’t go away.
“And the home now ablaze?” Vincent asked. “Did the house somehow attack your Alex?”
Rachel’s jaw dropped. She brought her hands to her cheeks. “Why, Vincent! I didn’t even know if you still remembered his name! Gosh, you’re so on top of things!” She looked to the two women at his side. “Is he always this on top of things?”
Vincent sighed dramatically. “I grow tired of this, Rachel. We will take the succubus to be judged. Expect an assembly in the morning where you may state your case. Is that all?”
“Yeah,” Rachel said, looking down and kicking a rock while she stuck her lower lip out in a pout. “It’s just…well, I figured you should probably know a couple other things, too.”
Vincent gestured to his companions, who stepped forward to take up Lydia by either arm. He sighed yet again. “Such as?”
“Oh,” Rachel shrugged, “just that Baal is dead.”
The two angels taking hold of Lydia both stopped and blinked. Vincent’s scowl cracked, overcome with disbelief. “What?” he asked.
“Yup. Dead. Slain. Wasted. Kicked the bucket. First he was all, ‘Rawr! I’m a duke of Hell, bitches!’ and then he was like, ‘This is my turf! Welcome to Castle Cocksucker!’ and then he was all, ‘You’re all gonna die!’ and then it was, ‘Fuck, this sword hurts!’ and finally he was like, ‘Oh fuck, I’m dead!’”
The other angels watched her flailing demonstration as if she was insane, but Rachel was used to that. The sight of Vincent’s face as his mind tried to grasp the news was priceless. “How…?”
“Alex did it,” Rachel said. “In Hell. With my sword. Knew how to use it, too. Ladies, you know what it’s like to be with a guy who can really handle his…hrm,” she frowned, looking back from the other two angels to Vincent, “no, I imagine you probably don’t.”
Vincent’s eyes were wide. “How did this happen?”
“It was Colonel Mustard in the billiard room with the fucking candlestick! Come on, I just told you! Baal and Skanktastic here tried to kidnap Lorelei and drag her back to Hell, and so Alex went after him and shanked his monkey ass!”
“You’re sure?”
“My blade. Not like I wasn’t part of it,” Rachel smiled. She paused for effect before she said, “Happened right after I killed your old buddy Harrow.”
The glorious angel’s face went white. His mouth fell open.
“Here, catch,” Rachel said. She tossed Vincent one of Harrow’s large, bone-white teeth. It bounced up against Vincent’s chest and then fell to the ground. “Aw, you didn’t catch. I brought that all the way from Hell for you.”
Her smile never abated, nor did her good cheer. Vincent’s companions were suitably stunned, while Lydia just looked on with a hateful glare. “Harrow is dead…by your hand?”
“Yep! Well. To be fair, I got an assist from a couple of mortals. Cute, too.” Rachel looked sideways to the other two angels. “And I’m pretty sure one of ‘em’s single, ladies. I’m not saying I know for sure, but from the looks of things,” she went on, holding up her two hands roughly ten to twelve inches apart, “I’ll bet Drew’s got a cock this-”
“Is there anything else?” Vincent snapped to cut her off. When she looked back at him, Rachel could see that his face had gone from white to shockingly red.
“Uuuuh, just that the whole balance of power between good and evil in the city got a fan-fucking-tastic shift tonight. A whole fuck-ton of very evil supernaturals died here,” Rachel answered. “You know. Vampires and sorcerers. Ones that lived in ‘your’ city. Oh, and we left Baal’s little corner of Hell kinda fucked. And, y’know, we captured her, too,” the angel added, giving Lydia a side-swiping kick in the butt as she was led past. She tossed the succubus a wink.