Immortal

by J. R. Ward

  He was vaguely aware of Jim and Sissy ducking out like they wanted to be discreet, and he appreciated that. It wasn't because he was embarrassed to show emotion--more that he knew that Ad would have hated to have any witnesses to this.

  Sometimes in life, all you had was your pride--and you were so far down the hole, you couldn't even safeguard that without a little help.

  Besides, Eddie was right there with the guy. It had been agony to be separated, and blind, and mute, immobilized in that body--hell, all he'd been able to do to help was rejuvenate the house, sending energy out to reverse the entropy that had so viciously attacked the place.

  But he was back--and he had to know where they stood.

  Like Ad read his mind, the guy shoved himself away and wiped his face on the T-shirt he was wearing. "You've never lied to me."

  "No, I haven't."

  "Are you real? And know that even in my dreams--you wouldn't lie to me."

  "I am." Eddie reached up and found a loose tail end of the wrappings. With big loops over his head, he started to unravel what was around his neck and chest. "As far as I know, I am back."

  Adrian took a deep breath and sighed it out. "I'm not ready to believe you yet, but, man, that is so the right answer."

  Eddie froze in mid-circle. "Matthias. Oh, my God, you took--"

  "Whatever. It doesn't matter."

  "It's the eye. The bad leg. But Matthias went to Devina--so how did you--"

  "He came back. Do-over. The bitch kept the flag, but Jim got another shot at the guy. We won."

  "Are we ahead?"

  "One behind--unless . . ." Ad glanced over to the head of the stairs. "Unless Jim has good news or something--that isn't tied to his love life."

  "Is he . . . are they--"

  "Yeah."

  "Oh." Eddie cleared his throat. "Oh, okay."

  Ad glanced over and smiled a little. "You always were a straight arrow."

  "To be fair, the last time I saw her, she was hanging dead upside down over a bathtub."

  "True 'nuff."

  "How'd Jim get her out of Hell?"

  "Long story, but it got ugly. If we lose this? It's because of Sissy--and not because she does anything wrong. Jim's different around her, and not in a way that necessarily helps us."

  Eddie continued until his chest was free. "You got a knife?"

  "Here." Ad moved to one side and sucked in hard, like the shift of weight hurt. Then he handed over a crystal dagger. "Compliments of the chef."

  The weapon was so sharp, Eddie had to be careful or risk cutting his skin, but the good news was that the wrappings just fell off. He left some of the shit around his hips. They already had one flasher in the house; two would be overkill.

  "I knew," he said as he offered the dagger back to his buddy.

  "Knew what?"

  "That you slept up here with me. I could hear you. I really appreciated it--it was the only thing that kept me from losing my mind."

  Ad accepted the weapon and cleared his throat. "Yeah, well. Where else would I be?"

  Downstairs in the kitchen, Jim watched while Sissy put on some coffee and got out a box of Duncan Hines chocolate cake mix.

  "Don't judge," she said as she put the thing on the counter and started grabbing eggs and oil from the fridge and cupboards. "I cook when I'm uptight."

  "I got no problem with it." Shoving the long sleeves of his sweatshirt up, he lit a cigarette and blew out a column of smoke. "Can I just say this? The best thing about being immortal is that I don't have cancer-stick guilt anymore--"

  "Can I get pregnant?"

  The second her words sank in, Jim embarked on a happy cruise through pulmonary arrest, the coughing fit taking over his entire body. When he finally recovered enough to draw oxygen into his immortal lungs, he . . .

  Really didn't know what the fuck to say.

  "You finished?" she asked. "Because I think your liver is over here on the floor."

  She turned back around, cracked three eggs into the white-and-blue bowl she was using, and then got to filling a measuring cup full of oil.

  "Well?" she said as she poured that in and then headed for the sink for some water. "Can I?"

  "I have no idea. I wasn't thinking like that--it just never dawned on me."

  "Yeah. I wasn't thinking about it either. But is that why you looked so weird on the way home?"

  No, he thought. Although now I have an all-new and exciting reason to freak out.

  "We don't have to--you know, have sex again," he said. And then took a long drag.

  She glanced over her shoulder. "No. Not going to bed with you would be criminal."

  Making a fist, he coughed into his hand. "Ah, maybe I'll get some condoms, though."

  "Is there anyone who could tell us . . ."

  "Tell you what?"

  Jim shifted in his chair as Eddie came to a halt in the doorway from the front hall. Dayum, he'd forgotten how big the guy was, how red his eyes were, how long that braid down his back was.

  And all he could think of was . . . it was so worth it. Going over there, bringing Nigel back--even with the risks, it was so worth it just to see the favor he'd asked of the archangel up and walking around.

  Abruptly, Ad stepped around his buddy and limped over to the table, the expression on his face a tangled, tortured mess.

  In the next moment, Jim was in Adrian's arms, the other angel having lifted him out of his chair in a bear hug that was so strong, Jim had to wonder if he was going to end up with a spinal condition afterward.

  But he got it. He understood exactly the words that were being said through the contact. "You're welcome," Jim said roughly. "And you'da done the same for me."

  Ad stayed there for the longest time, because he was a guy who couldn't express feelings well, especially not ones this big. And then he stepped back, wiped his face on the bottom of his shirt, and cleared his throat.

  "Okay," the angel said. Like that was a declaration of Ctrl-Alt-Delete, and he was prepared to reboot and refocus.

  As Jim sat back down, he wished he could have given the guy a couple of days off just to recalibrate--after all, you didn't go from your best friend being dead to suddenly standing next to the guy again, without a serious case of the head-fucks. But they couldn't spare that kind of luxury.

  "What did you want to know?" Eddie asked Sissy as he went over and opened the fridge.

  "Whether or not I can get pregnant?"

  Boom! Jim thought. And like an explosion had actually gone off in the kitchen, the other two guys froze; then looked around as if they were doing a damage assessment.

  The sad thing? Believe it or not, that issue was not the most pressing one they had.

  Chapter

  Thirty-two

  Devina paced up and down the aisles in her basement, her high heels sounding out and echoing around. Her minions had mostly cleaned up the mess--there was some fine-tuning to be done with the placement of her collection, but for the most part, shit was back where it should be.

  She needed the order now more than ever.

  How had Sissy known? she thought. What the fuck had tipped that girl off?

  Fucking hell, it wasn't like Devina had been doing an imitation of Jim like she was some Vegas entertainer pulling an almost-there stage act. When she assumed someone's identity, she was not the halfway Jack Nicholson or Al Pacino, the three-quarters of a George W. Bush or Elvis.

  Thanks to that Mercedes emblem, she'd had Jim's DNA to play with--and she had literally pulled him out of her ass, molecule by molecule.

  And yet that dumb-ass virgin had somehow figured it out.

  Make that just plain dumb-ass, the virgin part having been done away with, fuck you very much, Jim.

  Oh, man, she could just fucking imagine Nigel and his three fruits up there in Heaven, all totes relieved that they had another flag.

  How the hell had she lost this round?

  She should never have made that deal with Jim. If she hadn't released Sissy fr
om her Well of Souls? Then one of the alternates would have been on deck and maybe she could have gotten through to them instead of failing with that girl.

  Putting her hands on her hips, she pivoted in a little circle and looked all the way down toward her bed. She still had fantasies of Jim in it with her. Was still committed to winning. But, for fuck's sake . . . this just sucked.

  And the worst part? The only person she wanted to share her fears and doubts with was Jim--but he was not only with that little dumb-ass . . . he would probably just use the information against her.

  "It is so lonely at the top," she muttered. To, of course, no one.

  Evil wasn't supposed to be lonely, she thought. Evil was supposed to be havoc and chaos out having an awesome time fucking shit up. But instead, here she was, all alone and in mourning for some immortal man.

  "Love stinks," she muttered. "Yah, yah."

  Sure, she could summon some minions and have an orgy--but like any Christmas toy, even the best ones got boring if you played with them enough. Or maybe she should head out to some of the clubs and fuck some random humans--maybe make them do some corrupt things just for shits and giggles.

  But God, that seemed like such work.

  And meanwhile, she had no friends to call, no girlies to invite over and compare My Boyfriend's the Biggest Shit stories.

  Jim was her partner. He should be with her.

  Striding down to her bedroom area, she fished around her purse and got her phone. Keying in her password, she got his number out of the recently dialed call log and . . .

  Hovered her thumb over the lineup of black numbers.

  She just wanted to hear his voice. Like, he could pick up and say hello, and then she would . . .

  What. What would she say? Something like, Did you fuck Sissy when you got home?

  As if she wanted to hear the answer to that.

  Ugh.

  Damn it, why couldn't he just be the man she had in her head? The one who was as unhealthily obsessed with her as she was with him? The one who was ready to drown in a cesspool of Biblical-level fighting followed by epic make-up sex? The one who loved her and only her--and would never, ever be with anyone else.

  Unless, of course, they invited another woman to join them. And then bonded over killing her when it was over.

  On that note, Hallmark was so missing the mark on its cards. People who were in unconventional relationships, like those involving a demon, were totally shortchanged. Bastards.

  "Fuck it," she said, tossing the phone across the duvet.

  Her immediate instinct was to reach out, pick the thing back up . . . and double-check to see if he had called and she'd missed it--during the nanosecond the cell was in mid-air.

  Closing her eyes, she tried to think back to the latest issue of Cosmopolitan magazine. They'd had tips for this "When Your Man Lets You Down" shit. What had they been?

  Oh, right.

  With the blink of an eye, she banished the silk shirt and leather skirt she'd thrown on after she'd arrived here back to their hangers. Then she blinked again and she was wearing a set of pink flannel pj's with sheep leaping around the legs and a top that read, I FEEL SHEEPY. Next, she leaned over to her bedside table, turned her TV on, and called up ROKU. Heading into Netflix, she found the part marked "TV Shows," and decided on . . .

  Nah, not Frasier. She was in the mood for something else. SATC.

  Yeah, see, actually, she did have girlfriends. Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte, and Miranda. They'd all been through this shit--and they had good wardrobes, too, even if the show was how old now?

  From out of thin air, she conjured up a bottle of chardonnay, some Lindt chocolate truffles--dark, of course--and a tub of vanilla ice cream with a sterling-silver spoon.

  Tomorrow was another day. And she would rise to fight again.

  She was going to have to. Thanks to his win tonight?

  Jim was the last soul on deck.

  Chapter

  Thirty-three

  Way to get everybody's attention, Sissy thought as she realized she'd forgotten to check that there was a cake mixer in the house.

  As the three men looked back and forth between each other, like everybody was praying someone else would step up to the answer plate, she popped open cupboards and shuffled old pots and pans around. When she finally gave up, the boys were still in the frozen positions she'd left them in.

  "So is that a resounding 'I don't know'?" she asked. Yeah, sure, pregnancy was a private subject, but come on, the world could end tomorrow--literally--so normal boundary concepts were out the window. Besides, she really needed the information.

  Eddie, the one who was, you know, back from the dead, cleared his throat. Man, he was good-looking, with a strong face and all that hair. Plus he gave off a steady-and-sure vibe that put her at ease.

  "No, you cannot carry a child," he said carefully--like he didn't know whether that was good or bad news to her. "The Creator gave that special ability to mortals and mortals only. The instant you crossed over, you--all of us--are no longer capable of creating life. Perhaps it is the exchange for immortality in His eyes? Or maybe it is part of the reason the living must die? But no, in your state, it is not possible."

  She frowned and turned back to the bowl. Interesting, she thought. The whole kids/no-kids thing had never dawned on her before. She hadn't been one of those girls who had pre-planned their wedding since before their adult teeth had come in. She also hadn't been guy-crazy, either. And yet the idea that the choice had been made for her?

  Really sucked, actually.

  "Goddamn Devina," she muttered.

  For a split second, she decided she really should have stabbed the bitch when she'd had the chance--and that anger, oh, that anger of hers came back.

  Grabbing a wire whisk, she started beating the cake batter so hard, she didn't need help from anything made by Westinghouse.

  Someday, she told herself, she was going to reach the bottom of her losses. She just had to believe that at some point, her wrong-place/wrong-time mistake however many weeks ago was going to stop haunting her. Stop changing her life in bad ways. Stop making her want to cry.

  "Sissy, stop."

  As Jim's strong hand landed on her arm, she jumped--and then saw that she'd made a mess, chocolate cake mix splattered all over the counter, herself, the floor.

  She'd have had much better luck with a mixer.

  "Sorry," she muttered, breaking away and going to the sink.

  Washing her hands under too much water, she got stuck in the middle of fight-or-flight--she wanted to run; she wanted to hit something; she needed to cry.

  When she cranked off the water, she ducked her eyes and dried her hands on the seat of her yoga pants. "I gotta . . . I gotta get out of here for a minute. 'Scuse me."

  She left the kitchen without waiting for a response, her feet going a mile a minute as she gunned for the front door. Opening it wide, she burst out into the cool night and jogged down the shallow steps of the porch. She had no idea where she was going, and picked right at the end of the walkway just because she did.

  The good news was that the sidewalk went on forever. Striding forward, she swung her arms and punched her legs into the ground and pretty soon she was going by the house next to theirs. And then the next one. And the next after that.

  "Go back, go back, go back," she muttered as she began to pant.

  And she wasn't talking about to the kitchen to clean up her epic cake fail. She just wanted to return to that moment when the impulse for some Rocky Road ice cream had hit her while she'd been sitting on the couch at her parents', watching Pitch Perfect. It was one of her favorite movies in spite of her not being a big Anna Kendrick fan--too elfin with those little bitty lips and the big teeth and the pointy features. But she'd loved Rebel Wilson and Hana Mae Lee.

  It had been right as Rebel was saying, "My real name is Fat Patricia," that the hankering had hit and she'd decided to pause the movie, go for the keys to her mom's Subaru, and
head out. The plan had been to get the ice cream, go back to house to finish things up, and start in on either While You Were Sleeping or The Blind Side.

  She'd always had a girl crush on Sandra Bullock--

  Sissy stopped dead and realized it was all past tense. Not just the nuances of that evening that had turned her life into a nightmare, but all the things she'd used to like. Do. See.

  Be.

  Putting a hand on her lower belly, she looked down at her body. "I should have been able to choose."

  "I agree."

  She gasped and wheeled around, bringing her hands up to throw a punch. But it was just Jim.

  "You followed me," she said roughly.

  "Yeah. I did."

  She dropped her hands. Then crossed them over her chest. Then dropped them again. "I don't want this anymore. I don't . . . want to be here anymore."

  With resonant sorrow of his own, he reached up and brushed both of her cheeks--which was how she figured out she was crying.

  "I know," he whispered. "I know."

  Pacing around him, going on and off the sidewalk, she shook her head. "If you find out who the next soul is, and you win that round--what happens? Am I still stuck here in this netherland? I mean, I've been to Hell and I don't want to go back there. But I'm neither here nor there now--can I go to Heaven? Can you send me there? Please?"

  As she stopped and looked up at him, she could see his wings, the shimmering outlines glowing in the dark--and the sight made her feel like she'd gone to the right place with the request maybe. After all, she'd been to Sunday school; she knew that there was a Heaven--or at least, she'd been told there was.

  "Jim?" she said in a small voice. "Can you please just let me go somewhere else?"

  It was so funny, Jim would later reflect. The heart, as it turned out, could break in a million different ways: It didn't have to be a loss or a death. No, the inability to help someone you loved was shattering.

  You'd have thought he'd learned that earlier with his mother.

  And maybe he had. Which meant this moment out here with Sissy was one hell of a refresher course.

  And there was a selfish part of him that wanted to keep her with him. If she went up to the Manse of Souls, he couldn't get to her; they'd be separated, maybe forever. On the other hand, she was clearly at her breaking point, the stuff about the pregnancy having sent her into a kind of despair he could only guess at.