“You cannot,” Diana shook her head. “There are far too many, even for a warrior such as yourself. Our chances of escape at all are dismal already. You must let her go.”
“Think I’d rather go down fighting,” Alex frowned sourly. “Feels like that won’t really be anything new for me. Maybe it’s why I’ve been so fucking emo all my life. Anyway, grab your clothes if you want ‘em. I’m moving on up ahead.”
He left her in the basement dungeon, moving warily down the hall toward the pin-striped suit and old Thompson sub-machinegun amid the pile of dust that used to be Jack. He picked up the Thompson, checked its magazine for ammunition, and soon found several other magazines in the inside pockets of Jack’s suit.
“It’s like every one of these assholes is carrying around all my favorite stuff,” Alex murmured.
* * *
“Just breathe in an’ out, Taylor,” Wade told her. 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 still followed in Wade’s pick-up. As Wade advised, she inhaled slowly and exhaled slowly.
Both guards appeared at the gate, each holding out a hand to ward off the light. They wore 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 didn’t listen. 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 its target dead center. The second went a bit high, merely grazing his shoulder. He staggered back in shock.
Wade opened up on 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 one of those 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 came over her wrist, pulling her hands and her weapon back inside. “Y’all did good. Did real good.” Jason and Drew quickly came out of the pick-up to check the bodies.
“You still up for this?” Wade asked.
Taylor swallowed, nodding. “Let’s just do it,” 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 held one of the guards’ AK-47s. Wade gave it a quick check. “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. 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 frowned and swept the belt away. Drew pulled the road flare out of his coat pocket.
In front of them, Jason threw motor oil onto the hood of the vehicle. Wade drenched everything with the contents of their last gas canister. 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 ignored it, trusting Blackthorne and the rest of her people to handle things while she carried on, but Lord Baal’s sudden laughter jarred her from her concentration.
It completely disrupted her speech. She turned to look upon the demon lord gravely, trying to hold her anger in check. She was unaccustomed to interruptions while she held court. Centuries-old vampires had died for lesser outbursts. Yet this was a supernatural being far more powerful than anyone she could command. All she could do was glare.
Baal could hardly have cared less. He turned to Lydia, who 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 receive some souls tonight after all!”
“Master,” she blinked, “what-?”
Baal turned from her to look upon Lorelei. She glared up at him, seething with hatred. “Dearest, you truly picked yourself a winner! Obviously, I’d have preferred a Pol Pot or a Stalin. But as working stiffs go, your boy is a gem!”
The crowd began to murmur. Anastacia looked to Blackthorne, who promptly snapped his fingers at Spade. “Go see what that’s about,” he said. Spade drew his longsword and rushed down the stairway railing, leaping clear over the audience.
“Ms. Black,” Stefan said 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,” Baal mused. “Whenever he comes around, 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. “Please explain! 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 wanted.” He tugged at Lorelei’s chains again. “Besides, look at the numbers here. What do you think will happen?”
Lydia’s eyes narrowed. She turned from Baal and leapt off of the balcony, gliding on her demonic wings to the edge of the crowd. The succubus followed in the wake of Spade and Ms. Black, who had rushed off despite Anastacia’s objections.
A bloodcurdling scream echoed from down a long hallway. Baal’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 meeting an untimely end! Did you have him positioned down toward the basement entrance to effect some manner of shenanigans tonight?”
* * *
“Meant to be sneakier than that,” 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. Then again, he figured, even if he had lived all these lives-if that’s what they were-it wasn’t as if he was the same person. Alex was in decent shape, but he hadn’t exactly trained himself up for fighting.
“They’ll have heard that,” Diana said behind him. She’d thrown on her pants and flannel shirt again before catching up. She didn’t bother with buttons. “We must flee.”
“You said we can’t even get out of the house while the spell is on it.” He sheathed the gladius and unslung the Thompson from his shoulder.
“We can if we smash our way out. It will be difficult. We must find a good spot.”
“I’m not leaving without Lorelei,” Alex grunted, moving on down the hall.
“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…