Chapter 86: Alex the Party Crasher...

"Just breathe in an' out, Taylor," Wade told her quietly. He sat in the passenger's side of the SUV, looking straight ahead as she drove. He wore Lucien's black sport coat and sunglasses. "In and out. We got the brights on an' these windows are tinted. They'll never see this comin'."

"Right," she nodded. She glanced in her rear view mirror yet again to ensure that Jason and Drew were still following in Wade's pick-up. As Wade advised, she inhaled slowly and exhaled slowly.

The SUV turned right, slowing as it came to the gate. The two guards were both there, each holding out a hand to ward off the light and to signal them to stop. They were both men dressed in long black trench coats and casual black clothes. As the SUV came to a stop, one moved to the vehicle's left. The other moved to its right. Neither gave any indication of alarm as the windows on both sides of the SUV came down.

"The Lady's court has just convened," said the one on Taylor's side. She wasn't listening. Instead, she took up the pistol in her lap, careful not to knock the empty 2-liter soda bottle over its barrel against the SUV's door, and fired two shots directly into the guard's chest. It was horribly loud; as Wade had warned her, the soda bottle did only so much to muffle the noise. The bang of the gun was still more than loud enough inside the vehicle to startle her. She winced after the first shot, but the bullet struck him dead center. The second went a bit high because of Taylor's unfamiliar and nervous hand, merely grazing his shoulder. He staggered back, clutching at the wounds.

Wade was already shooting the other guard with his sub-machinegun, but Taylor wasn't looking. Instead, she fired four more times. Only two of the shots hit him, but they were enough. One of them went into the side of his head. Taylor felt the snap and click of the hammer striking home against empty shells in the chamber as she kept pulling the trigger.

"Cool, Taylor, it's cool," Wade told her in a quiet but hurried voice. His hand was over her wrist, pulling her hands and her weapon back inside. "Y'all did good. Did real good."

Jason and Drew were already out of the pick-up behind them, checking the bodies. Both of the guards had been hiding AK-47s under their coats.

"You still up for this?" Wade asked.

Taylor swallowed, nodding. "Let's just do this," she said.

Wade got out of the SUV, leaving the door open. "We're right behind ya."

As Jason opened up the gate, Drew slipped into the passenger side seat. He had in his hands one of the rifles that they had just picked up. Wade paused to tell him how to use it, but after a quick check of the weapon, he just shrugged. "It's ready to go. Point an' shoot. If one magazine don't do the job, y'all ain't gonna have time t' reload anyway."

"Great," Drew scowled. Wade slammed the passenger side door shut and then hustled off to his pick-up, which Jason would still be driving. Drew looked to Taylor. "You all good?"

"I'd be better if everyone stopped asking me that!" she snapped nervously.

"Cool," Drew nodded. Then he reached over and popped her seatbelt buckle undone. She glanced down at it, frowned, and then swept the belt away. He pulled the road flare out of his belt, leaving the AK on his lap.

In front of them, Jason was throwing motor oil onto the hood of the vehicle. Wade was drenching everything with the contents of their last gas canister. After a long moment, they both gave the thumbs up, then rushed back to the pick-up.

"On like Donkey Kong," Drew told her.

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

The noises from downstairs were just loud enough to be concerning. Lady Anastacia would have merely continued on, trusting Blackthorne and the rest of her people to handle things, but Lord Ba'al's sudden laughter was very concerning.

It also disrupted her speech. She turned to look upon the demon lord gravely, trying to hold her anger in check. She was unaccustomed to anyone interrupting her while she held court. Centuries-old vampires had died for lesser outbursts. But this was a supernatural being far more powerful than anyone she could command. All she could do was glare.

Ba'al could hardly have cared less. He turned to Lydia, who had peeled herself from his side to look at him curiously. "Now I remember him!" Baal declared with great humor. He turned to Lydia with a wide, happy grin. "It turns out I'll be receiving some souls tonight after all!"

"Master," she blinked, "what--?"

Ba'al had already turned from her to look upon Lorelei. She looked up at him with her eyes seething with hatred. "Dearest, you certainly picked yourself a winner! Obviously, I'd have preferred a Pol Pot or a Stalin. But as working stiffs go, your boyfriend's a real gem!"

The crowd began to murmur. Anastacia looked behind her at Blackthorne, who promptly snapped his fingers at Spade. "Go see what that's about," he said. The vampire drew his longsword and rushed down the stairway railing, leaping over the crowd dramatically.

"Ms. Black," Stefan said sharply toward the crowd, "go with him."

"Do not!" Anastacia commanded. Ms. Black froze in her tracks as the Lady turned her icy glare at Stefan. "We will handle this."

"Never a lot of longevity there, though," Ba'al mused thoughtfully. "Whenever he comes around again, I can count on a good couple of years of wicked souls coming my way in a bit of a rush, but then he goes and gets himself killed all over again."

"Master, no," Lydia pleaded with him. "Tell me what's going on! Don't let this all fall apart now!"

"Oh, don't get so upset, Lydia," he shrugged. "This is a charming distraction and all, but I've got what I want here already." He tugged at Lorelei's chains again. "Besides, look at the numbers here. What do you really think will happen?"

Lydia's eyes narrowed. She turned from Ba'al and leapt off of the balcony, gliding on her demon's wings to the edge of the crowd. The succubus followed in the wake of Spade and Ms. Black, who had eventually rushed off toward the scream despite Anastacia's objections.

A bloodcurdling scream echoed from down a long hallway. Ba'al's eyebrows shot up. He looked to Stefan with a mirthful grin. "Why, Lord Stefan!" he said. "I believe that was your redoubtable Mr. White coming to an untimely end! Did you have him positioned down toward the basement entrance to effect some manner of shenanigans tonight?"

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

"Meant to do that quieter," Alex grunted, shoving the robed man off of his sword. He felt so confident with the weapons in his hand, so sure of his skills... and yet they weren't exactly one hundred percent. Maybe it was the result of so many memories in conflict, or maybe it was his mind's reflexive denial of so much of it. Then again, he figured, even if he really had lived all these lives – if that's what they were

– it wasn't as if he was the same person. Alex was in fairly good shape, but he hadn't exactly trained himself up for fighting.

"They'll have heard that," Diana said behind him. She had thrown on her pants and flannel shirt again before catching up, but nothing else. She hadn't even bothered to button it. "Their numbers will be overwhelming. We must flee."

"You said we can't get out of the house while the spell is on it." As he spoke, he sheathed the gladius again and unslung the Thompson from his shoulder.

"We can if we smash our way out. It will be difficult, but we just have to find a good spot."

"I'm not leaving without Lorelei." Alex was already moving on.

"The other demon? You can't be serious."

"I love her."

"She is a demon. She cannot feel love. You have been manipulated, and you know it. You must let this go, Alex. You cannot get her back from them. You will die trying."

"I'm good with that," he growled, walking on without her. Something made him stop as he came to a corner. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but it was something about eastern France and preferring to be back in his tank and having to write a letter to Anderson's mother about how he died in house-to-house fighting like an infantryman when they should've just been buttoned up in their Sherman...

Alex scowled, shouldered the Thompson, and let fly a circular burst straight through the corner of the hallway ahead. There was a shriek of pain and a cry of surprise, and suddenly a long blade and a black trench coat were flying out from around the corner. Alex threw himself to one side, hoping to evade the vampire, but he needn't have bothered. Spade was crumbling to ashes even as he made his last, desperate lunge.

There was someone with him. She was in a dark-toned pantsuit, with the sort of features that could fit all sorts of ethnic descriptions. Not wanting to take chances, Alex raised his gun and fired at her, but she had a wooden wand up before he pulled the trigger. It was point-blank range; despite his awkward position on the floor, she should've been filled with lead. Instead, the woman waved her wand a second time, and suddenly Alex was heaved to his feet by nothing and then thrown through a door behind him.

The room had been converted to a staging area for all manner of refreshments. Tables of champagne bottles, assorted liquors and hors d'ourves trays were everywhere. Alex crashed into more than a couple of them in his flight through the thin door.

Ms. Black paused outside only long enough to seize Diana with the same spell and throw her far down the hallway behind her. The haggard young woman was flung with such force and momentum that she was sent skidding further away even after she hit the floor. With that, the sorceress turned her attention back toward Alex.

"So predictable," Ms. Black smirked as she strode in. "Give a man a gun, he'll use it before anything else. It's much easier to defend against a predictable opponent."

The bottle that flew into her face from inside the room was not, however, something she expected. It smashed across her face, and as she staggered back another one came right at her head to send her tumbling to the floor in the hallway.

Alex scrambled to his feet, rushing to put her down before she recovered. Then he realized Lydia was there, standing over the stumbling woman with murder in her eyes. The succubus's mouth opened wide; Alex had just enough time to drop to the floor to avoid the gout of flame that roared out of her.

He couldn't, however, move quickly enough to avoid her grasp. Lydia snatched him by the neck, heaving him up into the air with a vicious snarl. "I was going to be generous and give you the only sort of death a man could actually want."

"Think I'd rather pass on death altogether, thanks," Alex managed to get out. Blood was running from her grip on his neck as the talons dug into the flesh around it.

"It's too late for that now. You've made far too much of a mess. Now you will only die in flames. Everyone will die in flames!"

"A new meaning to dragonbreath eh," Alex retorted. "Sorry, I'm all out of Tic Tacs at the moment."

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

"Not one of your negotiations have been handled in good faith," Anastacia sneered at Lord Stefan. "What other side deals have you made with the demons? With others?"

"Lady Anastacia, this does not become you," Stefan replied darkly. "The Brotherhood and your people have coexisted in tension and even hostility in the past. My people are quite prepared to continue on doing so if necessary. Our dealings with Lord Ba'al and Mistress Lydia are our own business."

Blackthorne cleared his throat audibly. "What say you to that, Lord Ba'al?"

Still watching the scene from his spot on the staircase with Lorelei restrained at his feet, Lord Ba'al had lost neither his amusement nor his composure. "I think I will say nothing and let this lovely bit of chaos play itself out."

On the floor below, the guests were growing more and more tense. The Brotherhood as a group backed up a bit, closing ranks and hoping to open up space between themselves and the vampires, whose expressions had generally shifted from cool and measured hospitality to open suspicion and hunger.

Molly was getting antsy. "Onyx?"

Onyx still seemed to be concentrating on her divination. "Wait for it," she replied steadily.

In front of them, Mr. Woods turned to look at the pair suspiciously. "Wait for what, exactly?"