Past Due Read online

  They didn’t answer, heading off across the broad plaza. The University of Washington’s "Red Square" was allegedly so named for its red brick surface, but hardly anyone believed it could be that simple. Not for a college structure built in the 1960s. Despite the association, most days Red Square was filled with food trucks, the occasional vendor table, and crowds of students crossing the campus. Today was as full as any other day, except for the anger sparked by offensive signs and even more offensive flags. Alex and Drew were now two more college kids in the mix.

  Beside Taylor, a beat late, Jason looked up from his cell phone. "Oh, are we doing this?"

  "No. Jason, no don’t—Jason!" Taylor snapped, but the thin young man set his bag beside her and took off after the others. "What the fuck, guys? I’m not your locker!"

  "Somebody’s gotta call Lorelei and let her know!" Alex called over his shoulder.

  "Why me? What if I wanna get arrested, too?" she shouted. His short black hair and black leather jacket quickly disappeared into the crowd. Drew and Jason disappeared with him.

  Alex didn’t hear her. It was all he could manage to think ahead clearly enough to leave his belongings with a friend once he saw the flags and the high salutes. He wasn’t the only one enraged at the sight.

  "I thought campus police usually block this shit," said Jason.

  "They’re wrapped up with some event," said Drew. He was an inch taller than the others, ten or twenty pounds of muscle heavier, and sharper-dressed as usual. "Looks like mostly Seattle PD here. Do we wanna just do this or trash talk the assholes first?"

  Alex kept his gaze straight ahead. The native Seattleite in him was angry enough, but one of the men he’d been in a life before this one had personal experience with these flags. As usual, one past life’s memories could set off half a dozen others. Alex answered Drew with only a growl from an ocean away and a millennium past.

  Drew glanced from Alex to Jason with a grin. "As long as we’ve got a plan."

  "And as long we don’t pull the first felonies," Jason warned. "Like with a sword or a gun."

  "I left the gear at home today," Alex rumbled.

  Jason and Drew’s heads snapped back in unison. "Today?"

  Alex didn’t answer. He was busy looking for a way through the thickest parts of the crowd at the line of separation created by a handful of men and women in uniforms.

  "People, step back! Step back, please!" bellowed the lone campus police officer. Three others beside him in slightly different uniforms held batons out with both hands to create some space. His warnings barely carried over the cacophony of the crowd. Most other voices shouted their disdain, either with protest chants or angry vulgarities. The louder voices in unison behind the police cried out far uglier things.

  "We will not be intimidated!" shouted the clutch of men in polo shirts behind the police line. Their words came out with practiced timing. Though they lacked harmony or melody, they certainly achieved volume. "We stand for the white race!"

  "You stand for racism," shot back a woman in the crowd.

  "You stand for assholes," objected someone else.

  "We are here under the First Amendment! We are here under the eyes of our fathers!" they shouted as a chorus.

  "Are you here with a fucking permit?" demanded another young woman. She looked to the officers in front. "Are they?"

  "That’s not your concern right now," said an officer with sergeant’s stripes as he joined the line. Outnumbered and now outranked, the lone campus officer was no longer in charge.

  "They don’t have a permit. They just showed up to see what they could get away with," said another student. He had his cell phone up to video record everything. So did a dozen others. "And instead of arresting them, the cops are protecting them. Over an illegal demonstration!"

  "People, step back," repeated the sergeant. "Step back and let us handle this. Permit or not, everyone has a right to peaceful assembly, even if you don’t agree."

  "It’s never peaceful," said Alex. He squeezed past a couple students to get into the front line. "It’s a threat. That flag is a threat. That swastika on his arm is a threat."

  A thickly-muscled blond man in a polo shirt flashed a smug grin. "I don’t know what you’re talking about. I haven’t threatened anyone. We’re the ones being threatened."

  "It’s only words," said the sergeant.

  "It’s a threat," said Alex. "That’s why they’re here. It’s to build to the point where they can do worse."

  "You can’t put everything on a slippery slope. It’s signs and words. Everybody’s got a legal right to free speech."

  "I’m not arguing their legal rights," said Alex. "I’m not telling you to step aside. You do what you’ve gotta do."

  "Then what is your point, kid?"

  "They’re fucking Nazis."

  The sergeant let out an irritated sigh. "Okay, they’re not real Nazis."

  "You will not replace us!" shouted the clutch of men. "You will not silence us!"

  "Nobody here is making any threats except the people protesting these guys," the sergeant went on. He raised his voice to address the crowd. "We will arrest anyone who takes any violent action."

  "Nazi propaganda is violence," Alex seethed. "Their whole purpose is violence."

  "What’re you gonna do if I let you by, huh, kid? You gonna punch ‘em?"

  "Well, they’re not gonna punch themselves," said Alex.

  "Step back. I’m not gonna tell you again." The sergeant nudged another man in uniform to his side, who lowered his baton to take up a large plastic spray bottle from his belt. "If you do not step back, we will use pepper spray! It’s going to be pepper spray everywhere up in here!"

  "Hey, don’t say ‘up in here,’ grandpa!" objected a voice in the crowd.

  Behind the cops, the clutch of men threw their white hands up into the air in a single, unified salute. "We must secure the existence of—"

  A roar of anger from the crowd of protestors drowned out the rest. The officers redoubled their firm stance, with the rise in emotions all around becoming too much for anyone to ignore. The sergeant reached for the radio microphone mounted on his shoulder. "We need more help out here, where the hell is the rest of—?"

  It was all the break Alex needed. The sergeant had turned his head to the radio. Alex swiftly ducked down and around his other side. "Aw, shit!" The sergeant turned on reflex, only to open up a path for others.

  The space within the cordon created by the police barely ran two yards. Alex immediately came face to face with several men, some of them larger than him. The rush of movement left at least a few faltering in their salutes in expectation of an attack.

  Alex had died fighting this cause once before. He remembered bleeding out in a field in Europe all too well. That last fight had been one he might have avoided, except he never considered that for a second. He never considered it now, either.

  "Pussy," scoffed the beefy one with the swastika on his arm. He threw up his hand to resume his salute and his chant.

  Alex planted a solid right cross on the man’s nose.

  Shouts and scuffles didn’t cover up the satisfying crunch of cartilage. Perhaps Alex only sensed it through the sensation traveling up his arm. His target took the blow full on his smug face and staggered back with blood instantly dripping over his mouth.

  "Whoa!" blurted one of his compatriots. He dropped his flag to swing its pole at Alex, but it never came. Drew sent a kick over the pole into the man’s gut.

  Alex threw a second punch but only hit his target’s shoulder. The guy knew how to use his size in a fight. He also had a facial injury to undercut that advantage. A relentless third blow got under the bigger man’s arm, knocking his opponent backward onto his ass against the red bricks of the plaza.

  Strong hands seized Alex from behind, keeping him from doing anything more. Training and experience gathered over short, violent lifetimes urged him to escape and retaliate. The modern mind at the head of it all held off those voi
ces. He fought his own instincts harder than he fought the restraint, accepting the painful twist of his arm behind his back. He knew this would happen. If anything, he had to give the cops credit for taking him to the deck before he’d gotten in more than a couple of blows.

  Beside Alex, Drew fell to the ground under two more cops. Though he didn’t resist, Drew still wound up with a cop’s knee driving into his lower back once he was on the concrete. They were rougher with him, because of course they were.

  Others had rushed in amid the chaos opened by Alex and Drew. Nearby, Alex saw another friend take advantage of the window. While he and Drew only got a couple of shots in apiece, it was Jason who had a chance to unload. Their wiry companion got one leg around that of another polo-shirted demonstrator and shoved, bringing the man down hard on the bricks. From there, Jason rained down rapid punches. Even when the cops yanked him away, Jason delivered a final kick to his target’s side.

  Alex didn’t fight the handcuffs as they snapped around his wrists. The whole ordeal hurt, but he sucked up the pain. Then came screams from the crowd, followed by a burning sensation in his eyes and his mouth. His face felt like it might burn, too. Before his tears made it impossible to see, Alex spotted the explanation: that red spray canister in the hands of another officer, its contents spewing all over the crowd. Alex turned away, coughing up a storm. He’d used pepper spray more than once in his life. It was good against everything from cultists to werewolves. He supposed it was good for disrupting a crowd, too. At least some of the Nazis would endure the same—and some of the cops.

  "Steve! Steve, knock that shit off!" coughed the one putting Alex in cuffs. "We’re in here!"

  "Oh god, I can’t breathe," choked the cop now rolling off of Drew.

  Alex hacked and coughed like everyone else, dismayed at the gross things happening in his nose and his straining throat. He twisted and rolled into a seated position. Blinking eyes cleared enough for a blurry glance at the world. Someone in a polo shirt crawled around on the deck in front of him, blood seeping from a broken nose under blond hair.

  Alex slammed his heel down on the guy’s fingers. "That’s for my tank, motherfucker," he wheezed.

  The world grew too blurry and painful to watch. Strong hands lifted Alex at both arms to haul him from the swirl of screams and shouts. Out of the scrum, his escorts stopped in front of the blurry form of another cop who delivered a single wipe across his face with a wet-nap. Then he was deposited in a seat inside the back of a police wagon with his arms still cuffed behind his back. He wasn’t alone long.

  "Hey!" Drew coughed as he was shoved into the wagon beside Alex. He’d clearly gotten as much of the pepper spray as anyone. "Officer!"

  "What?" grunted the cop.

  "You still haven’t advised me of my rights," said Drew. In spite of his throat, Alex laughed.

  "Couple hard core Social Justice Warriors here, huh?" asked the cop.

  "God damn right we are," said Alex.

  The dark, blurry shape of the cop climbed back out of the wagon. "You okay?" Drew asked. His face was still puffy and streaked with tears.

  "Yeah. You?"

  "I’m fine," Drew plainly lied. "This is what happens when we don’t have Wade to call out a plan before we dive in."

  "I didn’t think they’d go crazy with the pepper spray with their own guys in the mix," said Alex. He sounded just as bad as Drew. "Joke’s on us, huh?"

  "Yeah, I guess."

  Jason followed soon after. The officers settled him into his seat and stomped out again. He looked no better than the rest. "Oh man," Jason grimaced. "You’ve actually used that shit on people, Alex? I get the demon girlfriend thing now, but what does Rachel see in you?"

  Alex winced through more tears. "You’re dating a cop!"

  "She’s not a cop, she’s an agent. It’s different." Jason worked up a mess of bile to spit out the open door of the wagon.

  "How is that different?" asked Drew.

  "She doesn’t fuckin’ drown people in pepper spray!"

  "I’m more worried about my kidney right now," Drew grumbled.

  "I’ve got you there," spoke up a feminine voice. A blonde in a white dress faded through the side of the wagon like a ghost, though her wings and halo marked her as something very different. Rachel settled in between Alex and Drew, slipping one hand around Drew’s back while caressing Alex across his cheek with the other. Both young men breathed easier. The tears stopped coming. "I’m not cleaning up your snot. That shit’s all on you."

  "Guess I can’t blame you there." Drew bent over to wipe his nose against his knee. "It’s still gross."

  "Fuck yeah, it is." She turned to Alex. "Jason’s right. That stuff is nasty."

  "Speaking of me," Jason rasped between coughs, "help?"

  "Yeah." She paused to kiss Alex on the forehead before shifting over to Jason.

  "Thanks, Rachel," said Alex.

  "You’re welcome. You know I’ve got your back. All you guys."

  "You ain’t even mad?" asked Drew.

  "Pff. Over this? Fuck no. I’m neutral good, not lawful stupid. Seriously, nobody likes Nazis. Heaven holds grudges, too."

  Jason looked up at her in shock, then threw an accusatory glare at Alex. "You said they weren’t into playing D&D!"

  "I said Rachel can’t make time for a regular game," Alex countered. "That’s true."

  "Uh-huh. What about Lorelei?"

  "She’ll cheat, Jason. She’ll cheat and I won’t even be mad about it."

  Rachel smirked. "That ain’t the kinda ‘roleplay’ we like to get up to at home anyway."

  Drew laughed. Alex bit his lip. "Little too much info, Rachel," he muttered loudly.

  "Take your frustrations out on me in the bedroom, lover," she taunted. "For now, hold up a second. I’ll be right back." As easily as she’d appeared, Rachel walked right through the side of the wagon again.

  "Roleplaying?" Drew chuckled.

  "Y’know, just ‘cause Rachel never lies doesn’t mean she won’t fuck with you," said Alex.

  "It doesn’t mean she won’t fuck with you," Drew corrected. "C’mon, spill. What’s the game? You don’t go for no boring doctor-and-patient or teacher-and-student stuff, do you?"

  "I pretend to be your girlfriend and she pretends to be you," Alex grumbled. "We like it awkward."

  "Sounds about right."

  "We could do like a one-off game or something without a set schedule," Jason suggested.

  "Oh my god," Alex sighed.

  "I’m gonna be moving away! Don’t pretend you aren’t a nerd like me. Drew, you in?"

  "Sure, as long as it doesn’t get kinky," he laughed.

  Bodies stepped into the wagon’s open back doors again. The first wore a uniform, turning to guide the next arrestee inside while another helped from behind. Alex waited until they left to speak. So did the new arrival.

  "Okay, that was some sexist bullshit," said Taylor.

  "What the hell?" exclaimed Drew.

  "It wasn’t sexist," Alex protested. "You said you wanted to be a teacher. You can’t have stuff like an arrest record for assault if you want to be a teacher."

  "I said I was thinking about being a teacher, and that was before I had Nazis to punch. If I can’t be a teacher after doing that, then what good is it?"

  "Did you?"

  "Oh yeah. It’s a mess out there," Taylor declared with a grin.

  "What about our stuff?" Jason asked.

  "I caught Jocelyn walking by and passed it all to her. Don’t worry, I unlocked my phone and told her how to call Lorelei. She’s got it under control. Hey, how come you guys aren’t still all crying and choking like everyone else who got sprayed?"

  "Rachel came through," said Alex. "She’s probably why you got thrown into the same wagon with us."

  "Huh. It’s good to know people, I guess."

  "Did you know they like to ‘roleplay?’" Drew snickered.

  "Oh my gosh, seriously?" Taylor asked.

  Groan
ing, Alex banged his head against the wagon’s wall. "We’re in the back of a police van and you’re focused on this. Why does everything have to revolve around my sex life?"

  "Because it’s hilarious," said Drew.

  * * *

  Lorelei reached past the pillow and arched her back, stretching with a satisfied smile at the kisses trailing down her naked body. Hands came to her breasts as she settled back down again, caressing with reverence. She settled against the bed and glanced through the hotel window at nearby downtown buildings as tall as this one, and beyond them skies full of heavy clouds. Fit shoulders and a nice face in the bed with her made for a better visual.

  Absent a few more compelling partners, this was a pleasant way to pass a grey day. Lorelei enjoyed a good stretch once in a while.

  "You’re absolutely amazing," said the man with his lips against her skin.

  "It’s nice to be appreciated," she replied.

  "Give me half a chance and I’ll never stop."

  Lorelei ran her fingers through his dark hair, understandably disheveled after their tryst. She enjoyed the sight of the damage she wrought. "I have no doubt, Adam."

  He had nearly worn himself out pleasing her. It was effort spent by his own choice. Lorelei could wrap him around her finger if she wanted, tighter than he could imagine, and he would thank her for it…but she had no such interest these days. Though a mid-day stretch was delicious, much greater joys awaited later.

  Adam flashed his roguish smile at her. "Then how about we verify?"

  The chimes of a phone cut him off. Lorelei rolled over to reach for her purse at the side of the bed. Her phone was in hand before the third ring.

  "Can’t they leave a voicemail?" Adam suggested.

  "Some calls I will never ignore." A glance at the name on the screen already had her smiling. Hello, Taylor."

  "Hi, um, is this Lorelei?" asked an unfamiliar voice amid sounds of a crowd.

  Lorelei’s smile faded. "Yes. Who is this?"

  "Oh, good. This is Jocelyn. Taylor asked me to call you. I’m a friend of hers and Alex. I don’t know if you remember me, but we met at a party, back in September?"

  "Yes, I remember you, Jocelyn." She also remembered how well Alex remembered her. "Is everything alright?"