Elliott Bay was pretty at night, and prettier upside down.
Rachel came to that conclusion sometime after four in the morning, when her charge and his pair of bedmates finally all drifted off to sleep and there was nothing left to watch. She herself had no place better to be, though. She could have gone flying, and in fact would've loved it, but she did not. That would naturally be the exact moment that Alex would be attacked by demons or flying ninja monkey robots or something equally silly.
Instead, she hung upside down from the balcony rail with her feet wedged between the bars. Her shoulder-length blonde hair dangled from her head. Despite the pull of gravity, her white dress, still somewhat damp, clung to her body just closely enough to meet what little requirements of modesty Rachel still felt.
She saw a ship come into port. Watched a tug come out to meet it. Listened to the sound of cars rolling by on the Alaskan Way Viaduct. Heard the sound of two feet coming down onto her balcony rail above her.
"Get a good fuckin' look," she snarled darkly at the angel now standing over her. "It's the only way you'll ever see up my skirt again."
"How long have you been out here, Rachel?" Vincent asked evenly. He was, as usual, dressed only in white pants. His muscular, hardened chest was there on display along with all its faded yet manly scars. There was a time when Rachel greatly enjoyed looking at it, and at him.
"Long enough that you're my third visitor," she said. Despite her sour greeting, she didn't care for giving Vincent a show. Rachel curled up without any real effort to grab the balcony rail above her, releasing her feet. The angel above her offered a hand, but she ignored it. With a small tug and a single flap of her wings, she was up and over the rail and standing on the balcony again.
"Saw your great white whale go by a few hours ago," Rachel mentioned dryly.
"Harrow?"
"Think so. He went that-a-way," Rachel said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder.
"Gone now, surely," Vincent said with a frown.
"Yeah. 'specially with the way you're all over his ass now that you've gotten a lead on him. Some dedication there."
"I came to speak with you, not leap at shadows. We used to be so close."
"I don't think that means what you think it means, but that's been over for a long time. I've got nothin' to say to you that hasn't been said already. Go find a new groupie to hang on your jock. I'm done."
Vincent blinked. He still found Rachel's adopted speech patterns surprising. She had always been an odd one, but lately she had been downright strange. He sighed, deciding to press on. "Your charge..."
"Is none of your business," Rachel said promptly.
"I was given charge of this city. As long as he resides here, he is my business, and so is the succubus."
"Whom you want to get rid of."
"I do. But I have clearly been overruled. Your argument seems to have won the day. Our superiors feel that their relationship has brought good that outweighs the potential danger. They have instructed me to leave the issue alone."
Rachel waited for the other shoe to drop. She'd known Vincent far too long to fall for this. He was too proud to come tell someone they'd won an argument with him.
"I will concede this issue, but there is another concern that must be addressed if I am to leave this matter alone. The boy at this point has supernatural dealings beyond those of normal mortals. His right to the protection of a guardian angel is forfeit."
Rachel's eyes went wide. "What difference does it make to you!?"
"There are too few guardian angels as it is for the number of souls in this world. To waste such strength on one who is already so protected is unconscionable."
"Protected!?"
"Not only has he shown the courage you have so loudly proclaimed, he is also protected by the succubus. She is perhaps the most formidable and accomplished of her kind ever to creep out of the Pit. I hardly see how this counts as a small advantage. We do not protect sorcerers or others who draw strength from the supernatural. Why should Alex be any different?"
"We're not talking about someone who has turned away from Heaven!"
"We're not?" Vincent said with just enough of a hint of a sneer. "Whom – or what – does he lie with even now?"
"Is this really about him? Or is this about you? It can't be about me, not after all this time."
"How is it that you are so infatuated with him?" Vincent frowned. "To feel some sense of obligation is understandable, but what can he be to one such as you?"
"After everything he's accomplished, you can seriously ask that? Look at what he's done. Look at who he is. And even if he hadn't had all this craziness happen to him, he'd still be as great a guy as anyone I've ever known."
Vincent was unmoved. "I expect, then, that he will do fine without the protection of Heaven if he is so blessed with quality. He has, as you keep pointing out, already vanquished one flesh-wearing demon. If he is as brave as you say, he ultimately has even less to fear from greater demons. Against a demon of the Pit in its true form, courage is all a mortal really needs." He favored her with a thin, reassuring and utterly disingenuous smile. "I'm sure he'll be fine on his own."
"That's a bullshit oversimplification and you know it. You of all people know it."
"It is the way of the world," he retorted.
"I won't abandon him!"
"I am not your superior," Vincent shrugged. "I cannot order you to do anything."
"No, but you can come threaten and gloat, can't you?"
He sighed again, a bit melodramatically. "I am wounded that you look upon me with such contempt and suspicion. I remember how we once cared for one another. I do only my duty. I wanted to come speak to you before I went before our superiors with this issue."
"You self-centered motherfucker. If you start one more sentence with 'I,' my foot's gonna make sure the rest comes out at a much higher pitch," Rachel growled.
Vincent glared at her with his jaw set like a stone. Rachel waited, knowing he'd have to have the last word somehow...but then he turned and took wing, flying off of the balcony. In the back of her mind, she noted that he did not leave in the direction she had seen Harrow going. It was a small point to make, but telling nonetheless. There was a time when he wouldn't have even stayed to chat with her when there was a trail to take up.
There was a time when she'd have gone with him, and would have been overjoyed to do so. It wasn't a pleasant memory. Really, it just made her feel like a complete heel.
Rachel leaned on the balcony railing. She blew a lock of hair out of her face. Alex had one other thing going for him, she figured. Dying couldn't be pleasant – it had to be awful, really – but at least a mortal had the chance to ditch all his baggage at least once a century or so.
************
"You seriously want me to call campus security before I call the regular cops? Ann, you should see this place. It's a disaster." Lisa gestured to her surroundings as if her supervisor could see what she meant, but her cell phone wasn't exactly equipped for recording video, let alone video calling. Still, her description of the ransacked college admissions office was accurate.
"Yeah, well maybe if those fat-ass rent-a-cops actually patrolled and stuff, the office here wouldn't be so trashed. No. Fine. I'll call them. I'm just a little freaked out. At least it doesn't look like anything was taken...just trashed. You'd think someone would've stolen the computers, right? But they're still all plugged in. Anyway, I've got this. I'll see you when you get in. Okay, bye."
Lisa flipped her phone shut. She grimaced, picking her way through emptied desk drawers and scattered binders on the floor. Somewhere on the desk near her computer terminal was a list of campus phone numbers. She'd have to use that to call the campus meter maids.
She wondered how long it would be before anyone got there. There was something really dumb about having to be at work at six in the morning when everyone else got to roll in after 7:30 or even later. Her main role at this hour was just to answer the phones...as if anybody actually called a college at this hour.
What it really came down to was that Ann's boss, Colin, was an all-around douchebag desperate to show improved service in his department. He couldn't think of ways to actually make that happen, so he came up with superfluous bullshit like having someone in the admissions office as early as 6:00 am.
Lisa got to her desk, found the directory that she had taped in front of her monitor, and started looking for her desktop phone. It wasn't in plain sight. Lisa realized it had been knocked over the side of her desk and was about to pick it up when a gloved hand suddenly wrapped itself tightly around her throat.
She couldn't scream. He was holding her too tight. He wasn't alone, either. There were two men – no, two men and a woman. One of them had a long black duster on over black jeans and a black shirt, and on his hips was a gun belt like someone would wear in a Western. He even wore a black cowboy hat. The other, the one holding her throat, was similarly dressed (sans goth cowboy motif) and had an honest-to- God sword strapped to his back. The handle of it loomed over his shoulder. The woman wore a corset, black leather pants and stiletto heels.
In any other situation, Lisa would've made a snarky comment about sales at Hot Topic. "Natalia?" asked the one holding Lisa. "Do you want to explain things?"
"When my friend Spade here lets you go, you will not scream," the woman said with a matter-of-fact tone. "You'll just log into your computer quietly. Understand?" Lisa nodded. "Good. Then you'll retrieve the records for a single student. After that, we'll be gone. But do it quickly."
With that, Spade let her go. The other one checked his pocket watch, which he wore on a chain. "Forty-one minutes to sunrise," he muttered. Natalia just pointed at the computer workstation.
Gasping for breath, Lisa moved with shaking hands over to her desktop. She pressed the power button on her computer tower. In the uncomfortable silence that followed, she reached for something to say in hopes of reducing the tension and hostility. "Spade?" she asked. "Like the tool?"
"No, it's 'spade' like the card, idiot," the sword-bearing man snapped. "Like the ace of spades?"
Lisa figured that made him only seem more like a tool, but she held her tongue. She didn't want to die at this crappy job even before the sun came up.