Chapter 41: Rachel brings it...

The roads were wet, dark and hilly, but at least traffic was very light in downtown Seattle late in the evening. Paco didn't entirely care for being behind the wheel here, especially as he was still a little unfamiliar with the roads, but it was better if he drove than Chuy. His partner in the passenger seat was really only good as an extra gun or an extra pair of hands and eyes.

Carlos's superiors had insisted they bring Chuy along when they came up from Mexico, which Carlos had done without argument. It wasn't as if they wanted a shortage of muscle. But it would've been nice, at least, if the guy would talk about anything. Prison could turn a chatty man quiet -- Paco knew that plenty well -- but Chuy's silence was just creepy.

It was just as well at the moment, though, Paco decided silently. Following the Lexus through its confusing, steep downhill route required more than a little concentration. There were one-way streets, drivers who were themselves lost or just stupid, and pedestrians who'd go against the light... just like the smokin' hot blonde waitress from back at the restaurant who was now crossing the street while looking right at Paco and Chuy.

Wait, what?! Paco thought. He hit the brakes and swerved just enough to miss her.

Smiling, Rachel whipped out from behind her back a pair of kitchen knives she'd swiped from the restaurant. She spun around as if in a pirouette, carving with one knife into the rolling front left tire of Paco and Chuy's SUV, then doing the same with the other against the rear left tire less than a second later. They were good, sharp blades, and her strength was well beyond human.

The tires burst instantly, sending the SUV into a lurch. Panicked, Paco turned the wheel entirely the wrong way. The SUV hurtled through the intersection, twisting to the left a moment before suddenly overturning completely twice. It slid several more yards before finally coming to a stop in the middle of the street.

Given their predicament, both Paco and Chuy completely missed Rachel's celebratory touchdown dance.

************

"...and I'll just have the light garden salad," Lydia finished dismissively. The waiter picked up the menus, thanking her, but Lydia wasn't even paying attention to him. She was lost, for a moment, in her own thoughts, but then she noticed Carlos' cell phone was ringing.

He pulled it out and glanced at it only for a moment before deciding to answer. "It's the guys," he explained. He had, after all, promised not to pick up the phone tonight, but that was before their unexpected run-in with Lorelei as they arrived just minutes ago.

Lydia nodded, still chewing on the meaning of all she had said and the way she looked as Carlos answered the phone. The bitch had left Belial's service. That much was clearly implied by her "divorce" comment. But Belial would not have deliberately cast out his most accomplished seductress and spy, not without cause. He might have lost her, but that would have been the result of the sort of upheaval that Lydia certainly would have heard about by now.

But Lorelei had clearly been through quite a thrashing. No horns, no wings. No scars, either, but perhaps those had faded. She had spoken of demons being hunted in this city. Perhaps that was what had happened to her? Was Lorelei hunted by a third-party? Could Belial have decided she was too damaged and weakened to be worth retaining?

That was as far as she had gotten in her thoughts before noticing the look of surprise and concern on Carlos's face. "What is it?" she demanded.

"You're gonna have to find another ride home tonight," announced a clear, amused voice from over Carlos's shoulder. They both glanced up. Carlos saw a waitress from the restaurant, young, blonde and beautiful, pulling up a chair at the side of their table and plopping down into it unceremoniously. Lydia, however, saw her for exactly what she was.

"Hi," the angel said. "I'm Rachel. Sorry about your friends. I mean, I'm not really sorry, y'know, but still. Sounds like something I should say. You should tell 'em to be careful around here." She tossed the two kitchen knives down onto the table. "Bunch'a freaks in this town. Seriously. Ooh, hey, they brought the bread already!" She helped herself to the contents of the basket at the center of the table, swiping the butter knife from Lydia's place setting while she was at it. "This place makes really good bread, you guys should try some of it."

"Who the fuck are you?" Carlos snapped, now getting quite angry. He reached out to grab the knife out of her hand, entirely out of irritation, but in the blink of an eye she whipped it around to rap him across the knuckles with the flat of the blade. The speed of her strike was stinging.

"I am so much more fucking trouble than you could possibly handle. Oh, and by the way," she said, gesturing at Lydia as she held his gaze. "Repent, motherfucker. The end is near. For you, anyway."

"What do you want?" Lydia asked through gritted teeth. Her voice dripped with venom.

Rachel just smirked. She spread some honeyed butter over her roll and took a bite, savoring the flavor of it. "Holy fuck, this is good bread," she grinned with the morsel in the side of her mouth. The angel chewed for a moment, then swallowed, and looked at Lydia as if she couldn't get over some private joke.

"I'm here to tell you I know what you're thinkin', and you'd better forget about it. He's under my protection, and that means she is, too."

Lydia's scowl sharpened. "He cannot have a guardian angel if she is—-"

"The fuck do you think I'm doing here in the first place, you Santorum-smelling slob?"

Lydia blinked. "What?"

Rachel rolled her eyes. "Fucking Google it, bitch. Listen, it's real simple. That guy? The succubus? And anyone around 'em? Off-limits. Period. I even hear you've been so much as talking shit about 'em, my foot's gonna be so far up your ass, your mouth won't have anymore room left for sucking dick."

There was a stunned silence from Lydia. Rachel glanced awkwardly at Carlos for a second before adding, "Okay, well, maybe there'd still be room for one as small as his."

"You can't be serious," Lydia breathed. "The balance—"

"We can go right fucking now," Rachel offered menacingly. She stared at Lydia's eyes for a long moment. Without looking, she snatched the phone away from Carlos and dropped it in front of the succubus. "Got any friends? Call 'em. Let's go. I could use a good warm up before I smoke your santorum-smelling ass."

It was at that moment, her eyes now flitting this way and that as she considered the situation, that Lydia realized that all of the other guardian angels in the restaurant -- and there were a couple dozen of them, all of them formerly just minding their own business as they watched over their own charges -- were watching the situation very closely. Some of them seemed to be concerned, but more than a few of them looked unsettlingly eager. A couple of them even grinned.

To stand alone against a guardian angel was folly. Doubly so against one who was so plainly, utterly mad. There were demon lords that could do it, for certain, but not a succubus. Not even one as powerful as Lydia. But to see other guardian angels looking on with such aggression in their eyes...

The balance had held for centuries. It frayed now and again, in one land or another, but was eventually reasserted. It looked as if it would fray again here and now, and Lydia knew full well that despite such euphemisms, to be at the center of a "fraying" was the gravest of perils.

"I came here tonight for dinner," Lydia said finally. "I knew neither of her presence nor of her current state. My business here does not concern the whore or whomever she's toying with. Now are you quite finished posturing?"

Rachel held her gaze for another long breath, then nodded knowingly. "Good," she grunted, then stood and walked away.

Lydia's nails dug into the table. She opened her mouth to say something to the angel, but suddenly Rachel was back in front of her. The angel snatched up the breadbasket and the small cup of honeyed butter. "This is way too good to waste on you losers."

************

"Ultimately, it would be impossible to hide away forever," Lorelei explained as they rode the elevator. "We could do it for a time. We could move to some sparsely-populated corner of the globe, withdraw from society. Live on my financial resources and our love. But you would hate it, and yourself." She held a duffel bag in one hand, and Alex's hand in the other. He had his own small backpack loaded with a bit of spare clothing and a couple of books from school, but he had hardly even thought about that when they arrived at the hotel.

"I don't know," Alex shrugged, looking at her with more affection than concern once again. "I'm pretty sure we could keep ourselves amused."

She smiled back at him. "Oh, I know you will never tire of me. But you have friends, family, and there are of course your dreams. You care about the people with whom you share this world. As much as I might indulge you in endless pleasure, there is more to life than that for you." He shrugged, conceding the point without ever having intended to argue it. "Thus other demons would find out about us. It was only a matter of time. And now we'll have to see how much it is worth it to them to antagonize us. But I will protect you, Alex. As will Rachel. And, I think, others."

"I don't like the idea of hiding behind others," Alex frowned.

"You will not. You have not. But I think you will not often find yourself standing alone." She leaned in to kiss him meaningfully. The kiss lasted until the elevator got to its appointed floor, and as the doors open Lorelei backed off with a mischievous grin.

"All that is for another time, my love," she said in a very seductive voice. Lorelei stepped backward, her eyes not leaving his as she tugged him along after her by the hand. Her gaze promised great things.

When she opened the door to the honeymoon suite, Alex was floored. The "room" was bigger than the bottom floor of his mother's condo. The plush bed was easily big enough for much more than two people. Fresh roses sat in a crystal vase on the small dining table in one corner. A plasma television was mounted over the fireplace across from the foot of the bed. Alex was just wrapping his mind around the idea of a fireplace in a downtown hotel tower when he noticed the balcony with its view of the waterfront and Elliott Bay, and of the very large hot tub in the corner just across from the sliding glass doors.

"I had no idea this was what you meant by getting a hotel room," Alex murmured.

"I could have been more conservative," Lorelei smiled, "but you did agree to let me indulge you this weekend." She shut the door behind them, threw the deadbolt, and then slipped around to his front and kissed his neck.

"You indulge me just by holding my hand," Alex told her.

"No need to be so humble, master," Lorelei breathed into his ear. She felt his heart begin to race and his flesh stiffening against her groin. "The collar I wear has meaning."

"Lorelei, I only want you as my lover tonight. My friend. I know I...claimed you tonight, and I meant that. I want that. I want to wake up to my slave lover in the morning and play with you all day tomorrow. But I really just want tonight to be about love."

She smiled, running her hands through his hair. "My master," she said, "this is all about love and has been for awhile now."