Envy fa-3

by J. R. Ward

  Disappearing himself, he looked out of the window. Directly below e driveway, Veck got out of a Yellow Cab.

  Jim ghosted away from the master suite and drafted down the front stairs, becoming nothing but a disturbance of the air. Over in the kitchen he found that Ad and Eddie had done as he had, and the three of them waited together, forming nothing more than a warm pocket in the far corner of the room.

  She’s already in him, he thought to his boys.

  I can feel her from here, Eddie sent back.

  At the far end of the front hall, the door opened and closed, and got locked. Then some heavy-ass feet came down toward where they were standing.

  “Fucking . . . hell . . .”

  The cursing continued as Veck entered the kitchen, tossed his keys and ripped off his jacket. Next move was to go to the refrigerator and grab a longneck. Cracking the lid and drinking hard, it was clear he’d had a whole lot of bad night wash over his transom—

  Abruptly, the man leveled his head, lowered the beer, and looked directly where they were all standing.

  He shouldn’t be able to sense them, much less see them.

  None of them moved. Including Veck.

  And that was when Jim looked on the linoleum floor behind the detective . . . and noticed that the guy threw two shadows.

  Single light source? Two opposite patches at his feet?

  Keeping quiet, Jim pointed to the ground, and his wingmen nodded.

  Veck reached out with his long arm and flipped a switch so that more lights came on. Then he glanced all around.

  “Fucking . . . hell.”

  Obviously, that was the guy’s theme song, and but for the fact that it might encourage Ad into a vocal riff, Jim was thinking of humming a few bars himself.

  With a shake of the head, Veck went back to his beer, sucking it down on a oner. Leaving the dead soldier on the counter, he got two more and walked out of the room.

  Destination: living room couch.

  Jim and his boys drafted after him, but kept their distance. Veck was either extremely intuitive or polluted enough to have a radar screen for the angels.

  Knowing their luck, it was the latter.

  Sitting down, the detective disarmed, removing a respectable autoloader as well as a nasty knife. And then he unclipped his badge.

  His shiny, gold-and-silver police badge.

  The man held the thing in his cupped palm for the longest time, staring at it as if it were a crystal ball that he could see into . . . or maybe a mirror he was trying to see himself in.

  Put it down, buddy, Jim thought. Finish up those beers, lie the fuck back, and take a little nap. I promise I’ll return it when I’m done.

  Veck followed the orders well, putting the badge with his name and serial number on it by the weapons, swallowing the beers one after the other, and then leaning back against the cushions.

  His eyes closed a moment later. It took a while longer before those hands went lax on his thighs and fell to the sides, but then slow, deep breathing was the confirmation—and the cue to get what they needed and go.

  Jim extended his hand at waist level and went Jedi on the badge, levitating it up off the bare floor and drawing it through the still darkness to him. The instant his palm came in contact with the object, the same cold from upstairs registered, Devina’s evil dwelling in the space between the molecules of the metal.

  Eddie’s caution had seemed over-kill—until now. Given the strong signal the badge was giving off, you didn’t want to get caught with your pants down if you were working on the thing.

  Jim nodded toward the window, and just like mist disappearing, the three of them were up and out of there.

  Across town, in the thick of Caldwell’s urban core, the St. Francis Hospital complex was a mammoth operation that glowed like the Vegas strip. Under its some twenty different roofs, lives started and ended by the thousands every year, the fight against the Grim Reaper waged by every kind of doctor and surgeon and nurse there was.

  Devina was well familiar with the place: Sometimes those humans in white coats and green scrubs needed a little help to make sure the job got done properly.

  And usually that meant death, but not always.

  The demon entered the emergency room wing through its electronic front door. Wearing her banging-hot skin of female flesh, she got all kinds of stares from the collection of fathers and frat boys sitting in the waiting room. Which was why she didn’t take the shortcuts she could have. Ghosting through glass, steel, or brick was efficient, but lame: She loved being gawked at. Ogled. Hit on. And the burning glares of the other women, all those hate-filled, envious eyes? Even better.

  Finding Kroner in the rabbit maze of wards and floors and units was a piece of fucking cake. She’d been inside of him for years, helping him hone his skills and supporting his obsession. He’d been born a sick little shit, but he’d lacked the courage to act on his impulse—and that shriveling impotence had worked in her favor. Nothing made somebody who was hardwired like him more violent against attractive young women than his own deflated pencil dick.

  The ICU in question was seven levels above where she’d come in, and she took her time going to elevators, strolling along, checking out the nurses’ uniforms.

  Snooze. Baggy, badly printed cotton with no cleavage showing on top and saggy asses on the bottom. What the hell did they think they were doing with that look?

  When she finally got to the banks of metal double doors, she caught a ride up the building with an orderly and an old man on a gurney. The geezer was out like a light, but the pusher gave Devina not just a once-over, but a thrice-over.

  No doubt he would have made it to a fourth and a fifth if the doors hadn’t opened at her floor.

  She tossed him a smile over her shoulder as she stepped out, just for shits and giggles.

  And then it was time to get down to business. She had the option of assuming a mist and swirling over the polished floor, but that would have caused a panic. And she could have gone straight-up invisi, but that was a failure of originality in her book: She had passed many a century enjoying the interplay with humans, disguising herself among them, nipping at their heels and brushing up against them—or going farther than that.

  No reason to pass up the opportunity for some fun tonight, even though she was working. After all, her therapist was urging her to find greater balance in her life.

  As she zeroed in on the unit in question, she went down a corridor that was hung with photographs of various heads of departments.

  Very helpful, as it turned out.

  She stopped by several, noting the features and the accessories, the name tags and titles, the white coats and the striped ties or formal blouses.

  It was like shopping for a new outfit. And she came with her own tailoring service.

  Stepping around a corner, she glanced up and down the hallway to make sure she was alone, and then she fritzed out the security camera above her, sending it just enough of an electrical surge to knock it cold without exploding the thing.

  Then she assumed the visage and white coat of the chief of neurology, one Denton Phillips, MD.

  The guise was a bit of a saggy disappointment compared to her luscious brunette suit of flesh. The man was some sixty years old, and although he was handsome in a well-preserved, snotty-white-guy kind of way, she felt ugly and badly put together.

  At least it was better than what she really looked like, and a not-for-long proposition.

  As she went back out into the main corridor, she strode like a man, and it was a shot in the arm to see the respect and fear in the eyes of the staff she passed. Not quite as entertaining as lust and envy, but enjoyable nonetheless.

  No need to ask where Kroner was. He was a beacon easily followed—and she was not surprised to find a uniformed officer seated outside his private room.

  The man rose to his feet. “Doctor.”

  “I’ll just be a minute.”

  “Take your time.”

/>   Not likely—she had to work fast. She had no idea what Denton Phillips, MD, actually sounded like, and there was no way of being sure she got his height correct—which was what happened if all you had was a picture to go by: Now would not be a good time to run into any colleagues who would know better—or worse, the man himself.

  The intensive care unit Kroner was in had curtained glass walls, and even from the outside, you could hear the hiss of the medical equipment that was keeping him alive. Sliding the door back temporarily, she pushed aside the bolts of piss-green fabric and stepped in.

  “You look like shit,” she said in a male voice.

  As she walked to the bed, she let the visual lie of the good doctor slip away, showing herself as the beautiful woman Kroner had first met a decade ago.

  There were tubes going in and out of every orifice he had, and the tangle of wires coming off his chest made him look like some kind of human switchboard. Lot of bandages and white gauze over gray skin. Lot of bruising. And his face looked like a Mylar balloon, all red and shiny, stretched out from the swelling.

  This was not the end that she had planned and worked for. DelVecchio was supposed to have given in and killed the bastard before Heron even got wind of who the next soul was. Unfortunately, her stringy, sicko sacrificial lamb had been slaughtered by someone else.

  For fuck’s sake, it was obvious he wasn’t going to make it. She was not a doctor—she just played one from time to time, natch—but that pallor alone made her think of morticians.

  It wasn’t too late for the bastard, though. And after this little whoopsie, she was not taking any chances with the outcome of this round. Time to get a little more aggressive, especially given the deal she’d struck with Heron.

  “Not your time to go yet.” She leaned over the bed. “I need you.”

  Closing her eyes, she misted out over the man’s body, blanketing him, and then seeping inside of him through his every pore. The power innate in her filled his depleted tank, reenergizing him, pulling him out of the death spiral at the same time it healed and strengthened him.

  And to think humans relied on crash carts. How rudimentary was that?

  Kroner’s eyes popped open just as she was retracting herself, and as she reassumed her shape beside him, he focused on her.

  Love shone out of his gaze.

  Pathetic, but useful.

  “Live,” she commanded, “and I shall see you soon.”

  He tried to nod, but there was too much going on with the intubation thingy in his throat. He was going to make it, however. As she glanced up at the monitoring equipment, his heart rate settled down into a steady rhythm and his blood pressure regulated. Oxygen number came out of the seventies and into the nineties.

  “Good boy,” she said. “Now rest.”

  Raising her hand, she put him in a deep, healing sleep, and then she reassumed the image of the good old Dr. Denton.

  Get in, get out, get gone.

  She left the glassed-in room, nodded to the guard, and then strode down the corridor, passing the sycophants and suckups who all but dropped to their knees in her path. Which was enjoyable. To the point where she was tempted to parade around the hospital for a while just absorbing the experience of being the man.

  But again, the last thing she needed was to run into anyone who actually knew the guy. And, more important, she had an appointment with her therapist first thing in the morning, and she needed to pick out what she was going to wear—which could take hours.

  Which was why she needed a fucking shrink.

  Time to run.

  CHAPTER 13

  Angel Airlines, those sets of iridescent wings that Jim was still getting used to, returned him and his boys to the Marriott in the blink of an eye. In the pair of rooms, they converged in Jim’s half, with Dog doing a little circling dance now that the band was back together.

  “So what am I doing?” As Jim put the question out there, he wondered how many years it was going to take before he didn’t have to ask it of Eddie anymore. Probably a few. This job had come with no training, dire straits, and horrifying implications.

  Perfect Monster.com listing, yup, yup.

  “Get quiet,” Eddie said, “and hold the badge. Imagine that DelVecchio is sitting in front of you, facing you with his hands on his knees and his eyes meeting yours. As always, the more specific the vision is, the better this will work. See yourself reaching forward and placing your fingertip on his forehead, and know that this connection will give you the power to pull the memories from him even though you aren’t actually touching him. It’s all in the mind.”

  “Ba-um-bum,” Adrian capped off.

  Settling on the bed, Jim held the badge in his palms and felt like an utter ass. Back in his days as an XOps soldier, or hell, even earlier, when he’d just been a punk-ass civilian, he’d never been into this transcendental, belly-lint-staring, yogi maharishi-whatever crap. He supposed with enough go-arounds like this he might get used to it, but he was always going to be a doer, not a downward-dog kind of guy.

  Whatever, though.

  Concentrating on the badge, the thing felt like an ice cube against his skin, with all the piercing cold, just none of the dripping water. And it would have helped if he knew DelVecchio a little better, but he did what he could to see the man: the dark hair, that handsome-as-sin face, the cold, smart blue eyes—

  From one moment to the next, what he pictured became something he suddenly actually saw in 3-D, as if he’d been staring at a TV and an actor had stepped through the screen to sit in front of him.

  Except the shit was all wrong.

  The man had two faces.

  Jim shook his head, like maybe that was going to clear up the problem. Didn’t help. The primary visage was DelVecchio’s . . . and so was the other one, like a double-exposed photograph.

  Something told Jim not to go any farther.

  He did, anyway.

  Reaching out, he put his imaginary finger on the imaginary forehead of the primary DelVecchio—

  The moment contact was made, a live-wire jolt shot into him, stopping his heart and jerking his body. Then, as if he were a tuning fork, a reverberation took root—and took over. Beginning with the fingertip and vibrating down his hand and his wrist and his arm, what started as a subtle tremor became so violent, he literally shook apart . . . until there were two fingertips, two hands, two wrists, two arms, with him going between the extremes like a flag ripping back and forth in a gale-force wind.

  He was vaguely aware of someone yelling his name, but there was no chance of responding. He was in a fight for his immortal life, the blurring threatening to destroy him—and he was just about to lose his grip on himself completely when the DelVecchios separated until they were distinct identities linked together only at the hips and lower body.

  The one on the right was smiling, and it was not the detective. It was the older DelVecchio from the newspaper article, the one with the stained soul and the evil acts.

  The son of a bitch was loving this destruction.

  Fucking hell . . . Jim had a terrible feeling he was not walking away from this.

  Adrian knew the shit was going to hit the fan the instant Jim’s hands started to vibrate around the badge.

  Not normal.

  And then streaming black smoke curled up out of the cupped link of Jim’s palms, coalescing and then encasing the angel’s grip on DelVecchio’s shield. The shaking started as nothing more than a slow back-and-forth, but quickly that motion evolved into a violent rattling until the badge dropped out of Jim’s hold, and bounced on the short-napped carpet.

  For a split second, he thought that was going to stop it, but the smoke no longer needed the external source: Jim’s own hands and arms had become the base from which the quaking infection sprouted.

  “If it gets to his heart, we’ve lost him,” Eddie ground out.

  Which was the cue to get moving. Adrian and his best friend leaped up at the same time and went in opposite directions.
As Eddie gunned for the connector to their room, Ad jumped on the bed behind Jim. Bracing himself, he knelt down and locked his arms around that big chest, positioning the grip as high as possible, to form a physical barrier against the onslaught.

  He knew the moment the tide hit him—icy cold wafted across his skin, so frigid it registered as a burn. Opening himself up, he gave the rush a different area to contaminate, offering another target . . . even if it meant sacrificing himself.

  But the shit wasn’t interested in him; he was barely a speed bump as the tremors headed downward for Jim’s pecs.

  The saving grace they needed was that solution of lemon, white vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, and witch hazel, and good thing Eddie was always prepared. He came flying in from their room with a bucketful of the stuff, moving so fast it sloshed out, splashing his leathers and his World Wildlife Foundation T-shirt.

  The angel swung back and then hit them with a splash, soaking their upper bodies along with the bed. And then it was cue the evac: with an ear-numbing screech, the evil took off in rush, leaving only a stinky smolder that wafted off Jim’s wet head and chest. In the wake of the departure, the savior collapsed forward, going so limp the only thing that kept him on the bed was the hold around his torso.

  “Easy there,” Ad muttered, as he lay the guy out flat.

  Jim opened his eyes and blinked like he wasn’t sure what he was seeing.

  “It’s the ceiling,” Ad provided. “How you doing?”

  “I didn’t get . . . any intel . . . from Veck.”

  “And guess what—you’re not trying again.”

  “What the hell . . . was that? I feel like I’ve been in a turbine.”

  Eddie sat down next to them, settling Dog on his lap. “Devina’s already in DelVecchio at a very deep level.”

  “Goddamn it . . . can she not cheat? Just for once.” Jim fingertipped the front of his wet shirt, pulling the second skin free of his chest. “And shit, I feel polluted.”

  Adrian went to the bathroom and grabbed some towels. When he came back, he draped one over Jim and did a little work on his own head.