Good Intentions 3: Personal Demons (30 page)

“Ah. When you put it that way…I’m fairly certain I have several broken ribs. Something in my left shoulder grinds when I raise my arm. If you could see my true demonic visage, you would see more bruising on my face than my natural color. I imagine much of my body is the same.”

“Damn. Why are you even standing up?”

“I sometimes think better when I stand.” She squeezed his hand. “When you first met me, I had been maimed. Alex told you, didn’t he? I still lacked my wings and my horns. Tonight’s injuries hurt more, but those left me weaker. I’m not sure which is worse.”

“So are you gonna heal on your own, or do we need to find you some kinda demon doctor?”

Lorelei grinned. “I will heal in time, though much of that is dependent on Alex. It is part of our bond. At the risk of sharing too much, it is the lust of others that empowers me. By far the greatest share comes from the desires of my prey.” Her gaze drifted out to the night. “Wherever Alex is, lust and desire are the last things on his mind, or I would know it.”

“So you actually feel better when he gets…?” Drew reasoned.

“Yes. My own activity brings strength, too, apart from whatever Alex gets up to. Naturally, being together brings the greatest benefit.”

“Gotcha. That’s why you were, uh, with the FBI dude, right?”

“Yes.”

“So if it’ll help you heal, and Alex and Rachel don’t care, what’s stopping you? Y’know?”

“Even I have my limits. After what I’ve been through tonight, and with Alex missing and Rachel possibly flying off after him to who knows what result? Sometimes even a succubus isn’t in the mood.” She gave him a wink. “It’s kind of you to offer, though.”

“Oh damn, wait up,” Drew stammered, looking down at his suddenly shuffling feet. “I ain’t tryin’ to volunteer. I’m just sayin’ I know you an’ them aren’t exclusive, and you wouldn’t have any trouble hookin’ up.”

Lorelei watched as he got his embarrassment under control. “I never thought I would see you blush,” she teased.

“Uh-huh. Think I’m a little too dark to blush.”

“Alas, it’s too late to get a camera and prove you wrong.” She watched him thoughtfully. “I know you are not hitting on me, Drew. You came to understand casual romance far earlier than Alex, but you are also not the sort to throw everything to the wind for the sake of lust. I have known such men all my life. My mere presence has shattered families and destroyed friendships in the past without any effort on my part. Being a succubus meant I was drawn to such people. I worried at first that it would happen to you and the others. I even took steps to prevent it. Now I see how unnecessary that was. Perhaps even paranoid.”

Drew nodded, staring out into the night as he listened. “I can’t really blame you for that,” he said. “You
are
hella fine.”

Lorelei winced again. “Don’t make me laugh.”

“Sorry.”

“I spent millennia as a seductress for the benefit of others. It was only after I met Alex and Rachel that I could freely enjoy what I am for myself.” She squeezed his hand again. “It was only after you and the others that I could have friendships apart from that. It has meant—” Lorelei stopped. Her eyes widened and her lips twitched as she clutched Drew’s hand.

“What’s up?” Drew asked.

“It’s not much,” she hissed, “but I can feel him!”

For two seconds, he shared his excitement. Then her confessions caught up to him. “Okay, now it’s awkward.”

This has got to be my dumbest idea ever,
thought Alex.
Oh sure, I’ll just stare at pictures of my lady friends on my phone ‘til Lorelei looks up and declares her succubus-sense is tingling. Real slick.

The Humvee bumped along as Alex slid through the digital photo album. Naturally, most pictures showed Lorelei, who occasionally seemed intent on setting his phone on fire in the middle of the day. She never sent anything genuinely pornographic. He had to come home for that, which was the whole point. Her selfies were only a lure, and a reminder of his place in the best predator/prey relationship he could imagine.

The handful of pictures he had of Rachel were not so risqué. None displayed her wings or her halo, of course. Alex had been surprised she was okay with having her picture taken at all. Yet even after granting permission, she still generally avoided cameras, and thus he never pushed the subject.

Alex passed through photo after photo of less relevant subjects, thinking he’d be happy to see his male friends again or even the other random subjects of his lens, but none of them fit the goal of this silly exercise. He gazed on another sultry photo of Lorelei, this one of her on the balcony with her robe falling off her shoulder, and then moved on to something recent…and stopped.

Onyx stared back at him, her face screwed up in an annoyed expression. Nothing about the picture suggested sexual intent. She sat at a restaurant table, coffee mug in one hand, ready to tell off the photographer. Molly had sent this to him only a few days ago. The picture preceded this whole ridiculous and now very bloody mess.

He glanced up at the weary, ragged soldiers sitting with him in the Humvee, the rattling guns on the benches, and the desert drifting by in the windows. Then he looked back at the picture of Onyx.
Worth it
, he decided.

“You know you’re not gonna get any reception out here, right?” asked Rico from the shotgun seat, his hands full of an unfolded map.

“Got it in airplane mode already,” said Alex.

“What’cha lookin’ at?” asked Dwayne. He leaned against the Humvee’s right door much the same way Alex rested against the left.

Alex nodded at the long, thin box the soldiers had retrieved from the ruins. “What’s in the box?” he countered.

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

Smiling, Alex turned his cell phone off and tucked it away in his jacket pocket. “Same here.”

Dwayne chuckled. “You don’t look like a soldier or a spook, but you come outta fuckin’ nowhere carryin’ a goddamn
sword
. You jump in and fight monsters like you know what’s up. This is your life, isn’t it? You’re used to this.”

“Little bit. Getting there, anyway.”

“How do you deal with it?” asked Dwayne. “Seriously. Magic and zombies and shit? Doesn’t it turn the whole world upside down?”

“I’ve got a lot of good people in my life,” said Alex. “Lots to be grateful for. Magic and zombies don’t change that. I figure if I focus on all that, I can deal with the rest.”

“It’s that simple?”

Alex shrugged. “Hey, I went to school and got told magic wasn’t real just like everyone else. All this only started up for me a few months ago. I realized my life is completely absurd. After that, I thought about all the good and decided it outweighed the bad.”

“I’m not sure that’s enough for me,” grunted Dwayne. “That was some Apocalyptic shit back there, y’know? I don’t see how to square that with everything else I ever believed.”

“Nah, man. Think it over without making it about yourself,” Alex suggested. “That stuff is all real, right? No smoke and mirrors. But if it’s real, it’s always been real. The world’s been like this since before you or I came along. It’ll be like this after we’re gone, too. There’s no reason to think everything changed just ‘cause we saw it. We have always lived with this, so we can go on living with it. That fight was a bad scene, sure, but we’re not talking nuclear war or climate change here.”

“Shit,” huffed Dwayne. “I still gotta worry about all that, too?”

“Far as I can tell,” said Alex.

“Alpha, this is Six,” came the voice over the radio. “A nearby Predator has you in sight. You have enemies approaching at your four, six, and ten o’clock. Multiple vehicles at six and ten. We’re not sure how they spotted you. Over.”

Alex thought it easy to follow for military radio chatter. Granted, Vietnam had literally been another life, and he couldn’t remember it all that clearly, yet he knew the Army loved its jargon. Wade had spoken of it frequently in his calls and letters home while on active duty. Even now, he still accidentally dropped military terms in his day-to-day speech.
Wouldn’t radio calls on a mission like this use that language?
Alex thought.
Or at least more code words?

And why does that voice sound so sinister?

“Six, Alpha, copy that,” Rico said into the radio mic. “Do you have a range or an ETA?”

Yeah
, thought Alex.
Shouldn’t they have already given that?

The several seconds of delay that followed bolstered his suspicion this was not exactly a precision operation. “Alpha, Six, within one minute, maybe less. They’re moving fast.”

“Shit,” grunted Rico. He looked up to the gunner standing in the turret mount right behind the two front seats. “Austin! We’ve got off-road traffic. You see any dust clouds behind us or off to the left?”

“No, boss,” said the gunner. “I don’t see anything.”

“It’s all sand and dust out there, they’ve gotta kick up something.”

“You can come up here yourself if you want. I got nothin’.”

Alex looked out the windows. The terrain gently rose to either side of the Humvee, but not enough to be call the area hills. When he glanced forward again, he caught Rico’s questioning gaze. Alex shrugged. “Don’t look at me. It’s your mission. I don’t know these guys any better than you do.”

“What do we do, boss?” asked Dwayne. “Can’t outrun much in this truck. Armor is nice and all, but it don’t win us any races.”

“We’ve gotta keep moving toward our objective,” Rico decided. He turned back to the radio. “Six, this is Alpha. Does the Predator offer close air support? Over.”

“Alpha, Six,” came the reply a few seconds later. “Yes, but limited. It has only three missiles. Not enough to take care of the whole problem. Perhaps if you lured them in close?”

“Who the hell suggests something like that?” asked Alex. “Is that even a military—”

“Contact, six o’clock!” blurted Wes from the driver’s seat while Austin shouted out much the same warning. Wes pulled the Humvee off to the right, plowing off the road and onto the bumpy desert ground. The move jostled everyone, nearly sending Alex out of his seat. Something clattered away from him onto the floor.

“Lost ‘em for a second, but they’ll be on us soon,” Wes warned.

“Shit,” growled Rico. “Okay guys, lock and load.”

It was an unnecessary order. All of his guys already had their weapons prepped. Dwayne’s attention fell on something more mundane. “You dropped your phone, bro,” he said, leaning out of his seat to reach the device.

He touched a button on accident as he picked it up. The move couldn’t have been deliberate. Yet he paused as the “wallpaper” lit up, staring hard at the picture of Lorelei. For a split second, Alex thought little of it. Even pictures of Lorelei could stop people in their tracks. Then Dwayne glanced back to Alex with something less than the camaraderie he’d shown before. “Boss,” Dwayne beckoned with urgency.

Rico looked back, then down at the screen shown to him. His grim expression turned even darker. “How do you know this woman?”

Alex groaned. “Aw, seriously? You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

“How do you know her?”

“How do
you
know her?” Alex retorted.

The team leader glanced back to the wounded man sitting behind Alex and gave a quick nod. In an instant, Carter sat up and hooked one arm up under Alex at the shoulder and across his neck. Dwayne surged up in front of him, pinning Alex to his seat and fighting to take hold of his other arm.

Everything became a sea of unwelcome weight, grunts, and the constant bump of the road. At the first kick from Alex, Dwayne punched him in the gut over and over. Alex withstood the first blow better than the second. The third overwhelmed all his gains from months of active living and working out. His core muscles collapsed as Alex wheezed and his stomach fell into spasms.

“I’ve got him,” grunted Carter. “You got zip ties?”

“Yeah, in my pocket,” said Dwayne, fishing around for them while straddling Alex to keep his legs still.

Panic surged through Alex as the men wrestled him and his lungs refused to take in any air.
Been winded before,
he thought.
It’ll be okay, it’ll be okay, fuck fuck I can’t breathe.
His sight blurred. Unwelcome weight closed in on his legs and around his shoulder and neck. He’d be okay in a minute or so, and knew it, but that didn’t help him breathe any easier as his body screamed that he would die without air.

Not gonna die. Not gonna die. Not gonna get kidnapped again, either
, he thought. Alex hid his left arm in the small space between his seat and the wall of the Humvee so Dwayne couldn’t get his wrist.
Not letting anyone kidnap me again. Get off me. Get off.

The voice on the radio chattered again. Someone shouted. “Stupid kid,” grumbled Dwayne as he fumbled with the handful of big zip ties. Most of them fell to the floor, but he only needed one.

Rage built along with panic as Alex struggled. He still couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t move much, either. It all made him angrier, which still didn’t settle his diaphragm. A bad day on the field in middle school P.E. had taught him he’d survive this problem, but that didn’t settle his wild emotions. Fortunately, one of the men he used to be knew how to use such fury.

The Humvee bumped along. The engine roared. An awful noise escaped from Alex as he barely managed to inhale.

“Okay, ease up, I’ll get his wrist,” Dwayne said to Carter.

“Get the other one first,” Carter advised.

The loud hammering of the .50 cal warned everyone of the appearance of new enemies. “Shit has hit the fan,” declared Austin from the turret.

I’m not getting kidnapped again
, thought Alex. Memories of a young warrior named Skorri agreed. His head pounded. His vision went red and darkened all at once as his rising anger and a second gasp of air fought off the threat of blacking out. Dwayne ducked his head against Alex’s shoulder to grab at the younger man’s wrist.
No. No.
He wanted to scream, “No,” but it came out instead as a nonsensical, jarring shout.

“Do you need help?” Rico barked. He climbed halfway out of his seat and around the interior mounting for the turret. Alex kicked at him out of desperation rather than any sort of plan. His heel shot out at Rico, striking his hand.

Alex saw his cell phone bounce free from the team leader’s grip. His own kick had already cracked the screen. The device landed on the floor, only to be completely crushed under Austin’s foot as he struggled with Alex. The younger man knew the sound of irreparable phone damage all too well.

Skorri’s rage never came so naturally.

His strength surged. He overcame Carter’s arm pinning him to the seat long enough to force his jaws between Dwayne’s shoulder and helmet.

“Gah! Get him off!” Dwayne screamed. “He’s biting!”

The .50 cal hammered again over Dwayne’s yelp. Carter tried to regain his grip, but Alex squirmed and fought too much to let that happen again. The struggle allowed Dwayne to wrench free, only to stumble onto the floor between the front and rear seats—right where Alex could stomp on his face without mercy.

“Six, Alpha, we need—shit!” Rico blurted as everything went wrong right behind him.

Alex made another horrible noise, trying to suck in every bit of air in the world. He pulled in perhaps half a breath for his effort, but it kept him moving. With Carter still struggling to keep his grip, Alex had only his left arm free. Alex squirmed in his seat, grabbed Carter’s right hand, and bent it viciously. Leverage and strength weren’t enough against such berserker rage. Alex squeezed and twisted Carter’s fingers until they cracked, kicked and stomped Dwayne further into the floor, and screamed all the while like a cornered, wounded animal.

“Jesus, boss, you’ve got a pistol. Just shoot him!” suggested Wes from the driver’s seat.

“I’ll hit Carter,” objected Rico.

He was right. In that instant, Carter’s right arm went from his only hold on Alex to his biggest liability. Alex pulled Carter around the seat and halfway into his lap. With his right hand finally free, Alex dropped a hammering blow against Carter’s nose. No one heard the crunch of cartilage over the gunfire, but Carter reflexively covered his face to protect himself.

The broken nose only stunned Carter for a couple of seconds. Soon enough, he’d throw elbows again, but it gave Alex a chance to look around for an escape route.

If the Humvee opened from the back, Alex couldn’t tell. Any door handle or hatch release was buried beneath piles of backpacks and other gear. Alex nearly turned away again before his gaze fell on the long wooden trunk the soldiers had pulled from the ruins. In the struggle, Carter had kicked aside the black shroud. Much of the lid had been broken off, either from the drone strike or simple age. Everything about it looked old. The bones inside it looked older—human bones, gathered in black cloth and but otherwise collected like so many odd trinkets.