If her wounds hurt, she gave no sign. She bled, but did not stagger. Rachel looked to Amber and Jason, gesturing to the largest concentration of brawling monsters. “Watch the rear,” she said to the awed pair. Then she strode on toward Alex and his assailant.
Rachel grabbed a fistful of Diana’s hair. The brunette was too surprised to react before the angel grunted, “No means no, chica.” With that, she hurled the werewolf-using only that same handful of hair-up and over her shoulder and many yards down the subway tunnel. Jason and Amber both ducked reflexively as the naked body flew past.
“Wow, lover, you’re a mess,” Rachel frowned. She knelt beside Alex, put one hand around his head and softly put her lips to his.
The bleeding from his leg and chest slackened rapidly. His arm, nearly wrenched from his shoulder, still hurt but no longer felt useless. Her kiss did little to resolve his emotional turmoil or the chaos of his memories. She simply didn’t have the time to spare for such concerns.
“Rachel?” he gasped.
“Yeah. It’s me.” She pulled him to sit upright, but could offer no further loving care. The angel walked past his companions, who stood guard only a few feet away. “Get ‘em out of here,” she said to Jason with only a quick glance. “Don’t take any chances on what happens here; just get fucking gone. Prob’ly still gonna be some assholes guarding the street exits, so be careful.”
Jason blinked in shock. “You can’t get us out of here yourself?”
“Wish I could,” she said with a shake of her head, “but I’ve got faith in you.” She kept walking.
“What the hell is going on?” Amber demanded.
“I thought you had to protect him!” Jason pressed, pointing back to Alex.
Rachel tossed him a grin over her shoulder. “I do. Check out how I balance my personal and career commitments.” She reached out into thin air with one hand. Her sword of flame grew from her palm.
Two werewolves leaped from out of the mob toward Rachel, crossing several yards in a single bound. The first came headlong into a broad slash of her sword. The werewolf caught fire instantly, engulfed from head to toe in the blink of an eye as it fell to the floor.
The other chomped down on Rachel’s sword hand with its jaws. Though not as strong as Rachel, he was considerably larger and had her off-balance. She wrestled with the thing, trying to get leverage without having to drop her sword. The task quickly became entirely too complicated.
“Fuck it,” she grunted, heaved the thing upright by her mangled arm. The angel punched at her attacker with her free hand, driving her fist up and in against its torso. Bones snapped audibly and its eyes bulged. Rachel punched again and again with blows so heavy that Amber and Jason could hear them as they landed. In just a few seconds of such treatment, the thing went limp against her. Rachel put her free hand against its nose and pushed upward to pry its jaws loose from her arm before it fell to the floor.
Jason finally answered Amber’s question: “All this is pretty much exactly what it looks like. C’mon, help me with Alex.” He gave her arm a tug, but didn’t stop to see if she followed. Amber managed a backward step or two but couldn’t turn away from the angel.
Rachel looked at the mangled ruin of her forearm. It began to heal as soon as it was free of the werewolf’s mouth, but it hurt like hell just the same. The angel let out an irritable sigh before she turned to face the ongoing battle.
If anyone else noticed the arrival of an angel, she saw no particular concern or change in attitude. Vampires fought werewolves. Werewolves fought vampires. At this point all of the mortal goons the vampires had brought along as servants or extra guns or whatever already lay dead. Rachel’s eyes swept the grand hallway one more time just to be sure of that. “Nobody here but us freaks,” she grimaced, figuring the three people behind her knew far too much to count as normals anymore. She stepped forward.
“Hey! Assholes!” she shouted. “Knock it off!”
The fighting carried on.
“Helloooo?”
A vampire flew through the air, ash trailing out of its shoulder from where its arm had been, and landed just over to Rachel’s left. A werewolf quickly staggered past her in the opposite direction, flailing wildly to get the vampire off its back. The undead Japanese woman in the silk robe refused to give up, having sunk a pair of daggers into the beast’s shoulder blades and now riding it for dear life.
Rachel couldn’t believe this. Her exasperation drove her to blasphemy. “Motherfuckers, do you not see the goddamn angel right in front of you?” Then she blinked, rolled her eyes and looked up. “Sorry, sorry,” she muttered.
A sharp, screaming battle cry came at her to herald her next attacker. It happened in an eyeblink; she hardly even got a good look at him. He was pale and Caucasian and dressed in an old tunic over a chain mail shirt, and he charged in with his longsword raised.
Rachel grabbed him by the neck, hoisted him into the air and then slammed him down onto the ground. The impact knocked the rest of his breath out of him. Rachel slammed her foot down on his face, crushing bone and rendering him immobile for the moment. She looked up to see if anyone noticed.
Nothing.
“Son of a bitch, seriously?” she sighed. It was at least as humbling a reminder of her limitations as the claws and teeth of the werewolves. She was an angel, and holder of dominion over the city, but she wasn’t omnipotent. Being super obnoxious didn’t make her super loud.
She’d have to resort to more obvious measures.
White light from her halo spread and intensified. Rachel illuminated every crack and corner of the tunnel, drowning out shadows and momentarily blinding anyone that looked directly toward her. Some shielded their eyes with their forearms; others couldn’t help but turn away. The fighting quickly ground to a halt.
“Are we all listening now?” Rachel demanded loudly. The glare of her halo diminished. She strode to the center of the mess, where a small pile of struggling vampires and werewolves separated and crawled away from her in opposite directions.
No one spoke. Not a body came toward her. Weapons remained in hand, claws and teeth waited to sink into flesh once again, but no one moved. She seemed small and innocent compared to the horde of monsters and vicious undead, but they all backed away in trepidation.
“So, hi. I’m Rachel,” the angel began, “and I watch over this city. And the surrounding area, so don’t try to get technical with me about suburbs or some bullshit like that.”
She heard a hiss from one side. Rachel turned her head to find the small Japanese vampire crouching low, still looming over the body of the werewolf she’d just slain. She clutched her daggers menacingly. “One would not expect an angel to bleed,” she observed.
“Indeed,” said Wentworth, who lurked several yards away behind a pair of bodyguards with swords drawn. “You strike an impressive visage, ‘Rachel,’ but I see nothing that could not be duplicated through mortal magic. Were you a genuine servant of Heaven, would not my own kind flee or crumble to ash in your presence?”
“Oh, whatthefuckever, dude,” Rachel sighed. She blew at a lock of hair that dangled in her face, but it settled right back where it had been. “Don’t buy into everything you read about yourself on the fuckin’ internet.”
Heads turned. “You don’t sound like an angel,” someone said.
“Yeah, I get that a lot. Believe what you want.”
“I believe you’re one sort of supernatural creature or another,” replied Wentworth, “and you have just laid claim to this city. Presumably you wish to lodge that claim with us? And the mongrels, I would guess?” Wolfish snarls answered his last comment, but the vampire paid them no mind. His attention remained focused on the newcomer. “You seek to treat with us? What is your business?”