“Dammit,” Hauser snarled, “who are you talking to?” He looked over his shoulder, saw the angel, and stumbled in shock.
“Joseph, no!” the angel blurted out, but it was already too late. He looked over to Alex. “Why wouldn’t you listen to me?” he demanded. “They’re monsters, Alex! All of them! Especially that Gypsy bitch and that demon whore,” he added, pointing past Alex, but whatever else he might have said was cut off by Alex’s fist in his mouth.
He didn’t hurt the angel much. The strike made Hauser wail oddly, but if Alex caused the angel any pain, it was all emotional. That seemed entirely plausible, though, judging from the look on the angel’s face.
“Aw, fucking dammit, no,” someone gasped from the doorway. Alex saw Rachel there, looking at him and the angel with despair. “Alex, you can’t-!” She stopped herself. Her head tilted. “You aren’t freaking out.”
“I feel a little freaked out,” he assured her, his eyes back on the other angel.
“Yeah, but you should… you should be worse.” She stepped close to him. Her hand came to his shoulder. “You know who this is, don’t you?”
“I don’t,” Alex shrugged. “I’ve never met any other angels than you and the ones we ran into together. The only other one you ever talked about was… was Donald,” he remembered.
Images of battlefields and dirty streets flitted through his mind, all of them the last sights he’d ever seen. In each of them stood Donald, reaching down to lift Alex to his feet again. He thought back to the boatman’s question. “Was it always Donald?” he breathed.
“Yes,” Rachel said. Her eyes searched him. “Every time. He wanted you to be a hero every time.”
“It was only for the greater good!” Donald protested.
Alex shook his head. He glanced toward the witches, who drew closer with their wands ready. “I’m over it,” he said. “Shouldn’t I be?”
“Shit, I wouldn’t be. But mostly I worried that you’d freak out like Hauser here,” she huffed sadly. Her gaze fell to the stunned agent with pity… and then her eyes went wide with horror.
“You didn’t,” she breathed.
“Didn’t what?” asked Alex.
“Rachel,” Donald began, holding his hands up defensively, “I can explain!”
“You son of a bitch!” Rachel snarled. Righteous fury consumed her as she turned to face him again. “You possessed him? How could you?”
Donald didn’t make it out of reach before she nearly lifted him off the ground with a kick to his gut. She slammed the palms of her hands against his ears, grabbed hold of his hair and threw him past Alex onto the grass.
Then she got mean.
“Are those angels?” someone asked beside Alex. “And are they fighting?”
He glanced over to Nguyen and Lanier, who stepped out into the entryway with him. Though disheveled and bloody like everyone else, they seemed okay enough to walk. “Yeah,” Alex nodded. “Looks like.”
“Stop hitting me!” Donald yelled.
“Stop being a bed-wetting fucker!” Rachel yelled back louder before hitting him again.
“That’s Rachel,” Alex added needlessly.
“What’s wrong with Hauser?” asked Lanier. The others glanced down to see the lead agent huddled against one wall, watching the angels fight in a state of shock and distress.
“I think, uh… I think he saw something he’s not supposed to see?” said Alex. He scratched his head awkwardly, turned back to watch the brawl, and then saw the black monster on the sidewalk stir. “Oh, shit,” he grunted. “Tell me you guys have a gun on you.”
“We were looking for some inside,” Nguyen said, watching the werewolf rise with understandable alarm, “but we couldn’t find any.”
Alex dropped to his knees and grabbed at the sword imbedded in Diana. He gave it a hard tug, found it stuck fast, and put one foot against her hide as he strained to pull it out.
Jared pushed himself up with one ragged but still mighty arm, then another. His eyes seemed to glow with rage as they fixed on Alex and the agents.
“Get back inside!” Alex barked at them. “Grab Hauser and go!”
He felt someone step past him then, moving entirely the wrong way to avoid trouble. The loud boom of a shotgun followed. Alex found Wade standing over him, racking in another shot and firing again. Blood erupted from Jared’s torso as the second blast hit. Wade stepped up closer, pumping and firing until Jared fell back. With only one shell left in the weapon, Wade stepped close and let it rip into the creature’s chest. For all the werewolf’s resilience, the relentless point-blank assault of shotgun blasts was more than Jared could take. He collapsed in a bloody heap.
Alex watched in awe. Wade turned and shrugged. “Ran outta bullets f’r the other guns,” he explained. “Figured we’d come see whut wuz goin’ on down here.”
The rest of Alex’s friends came outside along with Amber and Bridger. They looked on in wonder at the final fight playing out on the grass. Jason looked to Alex curiously. “Why’s Rachel kickin’ that other angel’s ass?”
“I dunno.” Alex threw up his hands. “Something about wetting the bed?”
“That’s awkward,” grunted Drew.
“I know, right?” Alex replied. He left the group to walk over to Lorelei, who had not yet picked herself up off the ground. Alex saw her wings and tail again, but they seemed to fade as he reached her. The woman on the ground before him had thin, scraggly hair and a misshapen curve to her back. He saw scabs and bald spots on her scalp.
Alex knelt beside her and put his hand on her shoulder. “Lorelei?” he asked.
“Leave me,” she hissed. “Just… give me time. I will recover.”
“Lorelei, you don’t need to hide from me.”
“Alex…”
“Look at me, Lorelei. Please.”
Reluctantly, she consented. Her hand reached out for his. Alex saw pox scars and ugly, jagged nails. He held her hand gently and waited until Beletsunu’s face turned to look up at him.
Alex leaned in and kissed her. His arms came around her small, weak shoulders as he drew her close.
“This will pass,” Lorelei hissed. “I just need a little time.”
“I don’t care,” Alex told her. “I love you.”
The others watched as the ragged and bloody angels brawled. After the loud chaos of the battle, this last struggle seemed almost quiet and anticlimactic, though it was plainly quite serious to the two combatants.
Donald managed a few blows and blocked a couple of Rachel’s punches and kicks, but he simply couldn’t put up a fight to match Rachel. For every swing he threw, Rachel landed three. Eventually Rachel knocked him to his knees and swept up with a kick to his face that sent him sprawling on his back.
She let out a heavy breath, turning around to survey the field. “Is the rest of this fight done now?” she called out.
“Looks like,” Wade answered. “Reckon we’re all good. Watch yer boy there!”
Rallying in desperation, Donald rolled to his feet away from Rachel, stood and reached out one hand to ignite his sword of flame. “Enough!” he cried. “I will not allow you to-“
Lightning and a deafening crack of thunder silenced him. Everyone blinked at its brilliance. Donald fell to his knees, charred and stunned, his blade extinguished once more.
Rachel threw a tired wave toward Molly and Onyx. “Thanks,” she huffed.
Molly lowered her wand. “My pleasure,” she replied. “Does he really wet the bed?”
Chapter Eighteen: Fallout
He followed the light.
Strange feelings washed over him. He’d forgotten his pain and his fear, but he knew, intellectually at least, that he should feel both. Paul Keeley saw darkness all around and instinctively moved toward the light.
The hallway seemed familiar. None of the illumination came from the overhead lamps, though, or from any window. It all shone from a beautiful brunette in a white dress, whose halo and broad wings cast light all around. She looked on Paul with a sad smile.