He had to escape. Rachel could deal with all of these monsters. With her in the fight, Donald could just concentrate on protecting his charge, and-
— no. Joseph. Rachel will know as soon as she looks upon Joseph. She’ll know how far I’ve gone.
Donald’s eyes flicked over to Rachel as she soared into the sky with three of the vile beasts. He couldn’t pull the same trick now. Too much damage had been done to his wings. But at least she was clear for the moment, granting him a chance to escape her. At least she’d taken some of the enemy with her.
Even this momentary distraction proved fruitful for his opponents. Both of the werewolves pounced at once. “No! No!” he shrieked, darting in one direction to escape only to run into the waiting arms of another looming threat. Grappled and held firm, Donald panicked. He fought to break free, found his strength, and instinctively drove his sword into the closest beast.
None of his opponents could have been as surprised by the success as Donald himself. He wasted no time in following up on the opportunity. Donald poured his divine will into the dying beast, immolating it from the inside out. Heat and flame burst from its body until it suddenly exploded, enveloping the air around it in fire.
Donald seized the opportunity to flee. He rushed past the other werewolf in a mad dash for the building beyond. Shaken and momentarily blinded by the blast of flame, none of them pursued. Donald’s eyes rose to the skies long enough to see Rachel fling down one foe and then another. She still had one left to deal with.
He prayed that it would distract her long enough.
* * *
Another bolt of lightning split the air in front of the building. The flash and its accompanying crack of thunder put an end to the duel of gunfire between Wade and Amber in the corner window and the vampire in the World War II fatigues. They saw nothing left of their foe beyond a patch of scorched ground and a pair of smoldering combat boots. With that settled, they shifted to other targets.
Bridger took up the next window over, firing with his pistol whenever he had a decent target. He couldn’t risk shooting into the melee between Alex and his opponents, but there were others to go around. “I think Lorelei’s still alive!” he shouted over the gunfire. “She’s still moving!”
Amber withdrew from the window to reload. “Worry about someone besides your booty call!” she snapped at Bridger.
“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 dress 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.