The man who eventually answered it wore a simple janitor’s suit, but he immediately struck her as nothing of the sort. He seemed fit and aware, clean cut and somewhat severe. Lorelei promptly noted the slight bulge under his left arm.
“Excuse me,” she asked, and then stood slightly within his personal space. His training warned him to step back, but his desire got the better of him. The succubus poured subtle power into her words. “Can you help me? You work here, don’t you?”
“Ah, yes, I do, miss,” blinked the janitor. “What can I do for you?”
Lorelei gave a tight-lipped smile, putting on a skillful blend of professional demeanor and flirtation. “I work for the city as a building inspector,” she said. Even the thinnest of cover stories would be enough; her approach was not meant to appeal to the intellect. “Oh, there’s no trouble here,” she then smiled disarmingly. “I ran an inspection here some time ago, and that’s when I misplaced some files. I know, it all sounds a bit dodgy, and I hope you can overlook that. It’s nothing to do with you. I’m just trying to fix a mistake without anyone catching on. But it’s urgent and finding these files would help me so much. I would be so grateful.”
She watched his breath deepen and saw his eyes flutter, occasionally flicking down toward her cleavage and up to her gorgeous face again. His desires distracted him from both the obvious holes in her story and the violations he was about to commit. “I’m not… supposed to let anyone in here,” he blinked.
“Oh, it’ll be a quick in and out,” Lorelei assured him. “No one needs to know. What’s your name?”
“I’m Dean,” he said. The little twitch of his eyes that followed told Lorelei he knew better than to share such information.
“Like I said, no one needs to know,” she whispered. “I won’t tell if you don’t.”
Dean’s common sense and professional responsibilities fought a losing battle with Lorelei’s smile and the cut of her coat. He gestured for her to step inside and closed the door behind her. Then he produced a small radio from his belt. “This is Dean,” he said. “We’re clear. Just someone scouting the building for a rental.” Dean winked at Lorelei and hissed, “Let’s make this quick.”
* * *
“You have Drew and Wade?” Alex asked, keeping his emotions in check.
“We do.”
“They’re here?”
“I’ll ask the questions,” scowled Hauser.
“I want to see them.”
“No way. Not without you showing a lot more cooperation.”
“What’s your name again?” Alex frowned. “Hauser? You want to show me you’re one of the good guys? Let me see my friends. Prove this isn’t all bullshit.”
“I’m not the one with something to prove, Alex. I’m not the one facing a couple centuries of prison time. You are.”
He has a point. Consider his perspective.
No, Alex countered in his head. Fuck that. “You haul me outta class and chain me to a chair with this bullshit story about vampires and demons and fairies-“
“Oh, I didn’t say anything about fairies,” Hauser pounced. “There are fairies? Tell me about fairies.”
“Fuck if I know,” sneered Alex. “Anyway, you want me to start believing you? Step up with something other than pictures. Put my friends in front of me. Let me talk to them. Prove this isn’t all bullshit.”
“And that’ll get me what, exactly?”
“It’ll prove to me that you haven’t killed them. It’ll prove you haven’t hurt them. Because if you have, my silence is gonna be the least of your problems.”
Hauser leaned in, his eyes narrowing. “You’re making a lot of demands for a guy who has nothing to bargain with.”
Bridger’s eyes snapped open. “Something is here,” he declared in a murmur that could not fully disguise his fright.
* * *
“What did you say that was about, Dean?” asked one of the two uniformed men she found at the top of the stairwell. Both wore body armor and carried serious weaponry, but seemed calm and relaxed. “Something about wanting to rent the building?”
They saw only Dean. “Yeah, some department from the college or something,” he grumbled. “They still questioning the suspect?”
“Yup. Been in there for a while now.”
The woman they did not see standing behind Dean murmured to him, “Forget me. Be on your way.”
Dean nodded. “Guess maybe I should stay downstairs, then.”
She slipped around Dean as he turned back, smoothly liberating his keys from his belt along the way. She was out before the stairwell door closed. Fully under her sway after a few minutes with her, Dean never even noticed.
Lorelei sensed the mystic wards on this floor as soon as she came off the stairs. To her partial relief, she could tell they were not demonic in nature. Despite such fortune, the wards presented their own problem: she had no way to tell if she had fully evaded detection.
Her answer came when both uniformed guards raised their hands to their earpiece receivers. One urgently moved to the staircase.
The succubus gently rested seductive fingers on the neck of the other. “Relax,” she whispered into his ear. “Sleep.”
Instantly, the first guard turned to her. His eyes went wide at the sight of his partner slumping over on his feet as if leaning on an invisible friend before falling to the floor. Suddenly the remaining guard felt himself kissed fully on the mouth.
Stunned and swept away by the instant ecstasy, the guard only blinked once before he, too, heard an undeniable instruction to take a nap.
Lorelei stepped away, knowing she couldn’t remain. Dean said there were only a handful of people present, but the uniforms and gear on display attested to their general discipline and vigilance. At any second, she would have company, from upstairs or perhaps down the hallway-
– and then she jumped back from the stairwell door. “Fuck, finally, there you are,” Rachel blurted, and then looked down at her feet. “You-! Oh. No. You didn’t. Okay,” she sighed in relief. “I was afraid you were gonna start whacking people.”
The succubus frowned. She turned and walked down the hallway to the left, figuring it was as good as any.
Rachel followed. “Lorelei, talk to me,” she urged.
The succubus merely placed one finger over her lips and kept walking.
“Oh, c’mon, talking without being noticed is just a little more effort! Dammit, fine, whatever,” Rachel rolled her eyes. “Okay, yes I knew Amber was fucking five-oh, but I couldn’t say anything. You know that, right?”
Lorelei turned to her with a quizzical expression. “Five-oh?” she signed with her fingers.
“Yes! Five-oh! The heat! You know, undercover cop, pig in a blanket?” the angel made several hand motions to go along with her strange slang. Lorelei just shook her head and continued on. Rachel chased after her. “Lorelei, seriously, I didn’t want this clusterfuck to happen. I did everything I could to stop it, which I grant amounted to a paper sack of piss, but I tried. You know my hands are tied over mortal affairs. Believe me, I was all over Amber’s guardian angel’s ass like a bad case of hemorrhoids.” Lorelei paused and made another face of obvious distaste. “It was all I could do!”
The succubus made a broad gesture with her hands and mouthed the words, “Where is he?”
Rachel gave a pained expression. “I can’t. If I could, I’d bust him out myself. I’m sorry.” She walked with Lorelei. “Are you mad at me? You’re wearing your poker face again. I can’t tell if it’s because you’re just focused on the job or because you get all quiet and inscrutable when you’re about to murderface some poor fuckers or if you just don’t want to talk to me ‘cause you’re pissed.”
Again, Lorelei stopped, this time to hold one finger up over Rachel’s lips. The angel fell silent.
Footsteps resounded through the hall behind them. “Jacobsen! Gutierrez! Can you hear me? Hauser, we’ve got men down. They’re alive and I can’t tell if they’re hurt, but they’re unconscious.”