Envy fa-3

by J. R. Ward

  “. . . vampire.”

  Jim frowned and leaned back, putting his head out into his room. Had he heard that right? Neither of his boys seemed like Twilight fans, although with Adrian, you never knew where the hell the lines were drawn. And ordinarily, he would have let it go. But he hadn’t believed in angels, either . . . until he frickin’ became one.

  “You saying I need to invest in garlic?” he shouted out.

  Dog repositioned himself so he could keep his eyes on everybody.

  Before a response came through the doorway, Jim’s cell phone went off on the bedside table. Going over and grabbing the thing, the screen announced that the call was from a 518 area code.

  Good morning, Detective DelVecchio.

  “Heron.”

  “This is Veck. How are you and your colleagues?”

  Recovering from all kinds of fun and games with you last night. “Good. Yourself?”

  “We’ve been going through the casework on Cecilia Barten. Do you guys have anything we don’t?”

  Jim had been prepared for the info request—it was SOP, and the kind of thing he’d have been able to field if he’d actually been an FBI field agent. “I’m not sure. You want to meet and I’ll take a look at what you’ve got?”

  “Good call.”

  “There’s not a lot to go on.” Devina wouldn’t have left dangling threads, and given all that she could manipulate, the cleanup job around the abduction had to have been spectacular.

  “Yeah, I know. There were no witnesses—how in the hell could there have been no witnesses?”

  Because his Sissy had been taken by a demon, that was why.

  Not that she was his.

  “Listen,” the detective continued, dropping his voice. “I think she’s connected to Kroner. Can you double-check your files on him, too?”

  “Absolutely.” Jim didn’t especially like lying, but he had no problem with it when shit called for a fallacy. “I’ll see what I can dig up. Lunch?”

  “Yeah. Riverside Diner?”

  “See you there at noon.”

  Putting aside the whole vampire thing, Jim walked around the end of the bed and stuck his head through the connector. “We have a date with the good detective.”

  Eddie and Adrian looked over, and instantly both of them frowned.

  “What’s around your neck?” Ad demanded.

  “At twelve,” Jim said, “which means you have another couple hours to argue while I get back on the Internet.”

  As he backed out and went for the pants he’d left on the chair, they followed him into his room.

  “What’s up with the necklace?” Ad barked.

  Even though Jim was flashing his ass, he decided getting a Hanes undershirt on was more of a priority. He didn’t want them to see Sissy’s little strip of gold, thank you very much—

  “We are fucked,” Adrian muttered. “We are so fucked.”

  Jim yanked the shirt over his head. “Thanks for your vote of confidence—”

  “She is not your problem! She’s just some girl, get over it.”

  Wrong thing to say in the wrong tone on the wrong morning.

  Jim flashed over to the guy and jammed his face into the other angel’s. “I spent part of yesterday afternoon staring into the eyes of that girl’s mother. So before you write her off as nothing special, I suggest you go over there and see for yourself how much she does matter.”

  Adrian didn’t back down. “And I suggest you get your priorities straight. There’ve been a hundred thousand pretty, innocent victims in this conflict, and yeah, that’s tragic, but it’s also reality. She’s just the most recent one I’ve seen—you gonna pull this shit with every chick you come across? This is war, not a goddamn dating service.”

  Jim bared his teeth in a snarl. “You holier-than-thou motherfucker. Don’t you ever pretend to know me.”

  “Then do us a favor and know yourself!”

  Jim stepped back. And glanced at Eddie. “Get him away from me—and keep him there. We’re done.”

  Adrian tossed a “eah, whatever,” over his shoulder and walked back into their bedroom. A moment later, a door slammed shut.

  Jim yanked his leathers on commando, and in the silence, he wanted to scream.

  “He’s right,” Eddie said.

  Shooting a glare over his shoulder, Jim bit out, “And you can leave, too. I don’t need either one of you.”

  There was a beat of quiet and then Eddie’s brows slowly lowered, cranking down over those red eyes . . . that suddenly started to glow.

  Jim took a step back, but not because he was afraid he was going to hit the guy. More like he realized he’d thrown a match on some gasoline.

  Eddie Blackhawk pissed off was not something to fuck around with.

  In a voice that warped as if it were a radio going in and out of frequency, the angel growled, “You want to be an island? Good luck with it—I saved your cock and balls last night, and that wasn’t the first time. You think Adrian’s the problem in this? Take a look in the mirror, you’ll get further.”

  On that note, Eddie pivoted on his heel and shut the connector, locking it in place. Then a brief flare of incandescent light suggested the angel had taken off the old-fashioned way.

  Wheeling around, Jim picked up a cheapo chair, raised the thing over his shoulder, and got ready to throw it at the door.

  Except he paused as he caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror over the dresser.

  His face was flushed with fury, his eyes glowing icy blue in the same way Eddie’s had gone Christmas-light red. His T-shirt was stretched tight across his bulging chest and shoulder muscles, and Sissy’s delicate necklace was cutting into the cords of his neck.

  Slowly lowering the chair, he leaned into the glass and checked the tiny gold links. Any more of that and he was going to break the thing, just split it right in half.

  “Dog, I’m going out for a little bit.”

  When there was no chuffing reply, no pawing at the calf for attention, no pair of scruffy ears popping up over the far edge of the bed, he pivoted around.

  “Dog?” Jim whistled through his teeth. “Dog?”

  Maybe the little guy had gotten locked in over at Eddie and Ad’s. Going to the door, Jim went to spring the lock with his mind—

  No luck.

  No Dog, either.

  He was alone.

  For a moment, he had a head scratcher, a kind of what-the-fuck-just-happened-here. But then he shut his connector and dead bolted it. All things considered, this split had been inevitable. He and Adrian had gotten into a fistfight within forty-eight hours of officially working with each other, and all that oil/water had continued to simmer below the surface. And yeah, Eddie was cool, but Jim had the sense he could lap the guy when it came to the magic—so he couldn’t say he felt compromised.

  It was neater this way. Cleaner.

  Besides, when he’d been under Matthias the Fucker at XOps, he’d always worked alone, so this was also business as usual.

  He was used to this.

  Partners, whether professional or personal, were just too goddamn messy for the likes of him.

  CHAPTER 16

  “I beg your pardon.”

  Up on the lawn outside of Heaven’s castle, Nigel looked across the linen-draped table and nodded at a Royal Doulton plate. “I should like the scones, please.”

  “That is not what you said.” Colin sat back in his dainty chair, his black eyebrows down over eyes that were full of curses.

  Their two dining companions—well, three if you counted the Irish wolfhound—stopped in midsip . . . or sniff, in Tarquin’s case. Nonetheless, Bertie delivered the plate in question, his fair face full of compassion, as was his way.

  Suffice it to say, however, that no matter how glorious the pastry on the bone china was, tea was ruined.

  “Nigel, what the hell have you done.”

  “I shall thank you to not address me in that tone, Colin.”

  “And you ca
n pop off with the etiquette. What do you mean, you’ve been to see the Creator.”

  Nigel broke open his fresh currant scone, and breathed in the waft of sweet steam that rose up. Indeed, they did not require sustenance, but to deprive oneself of this pleasure on a technicality was absurd.

  Byron pushed his rose-colored glasses up higher on his nose. “I am sure he had his reasons, did you not.”

  Unlike Colin, who was a hardheaded bull, the other two would merely wait for whatever Nigel chose to impart. Bertie, with his soft heart, and Byron, with his eternal optimism, were more delicate creatures than that other one, capable of demonstrating the virtues of restraint and patience in abundance.

  Colin, however, would perhaps inquire but once more. And then he would start pounding the tabletop.

  So naturally, Nigel took his time with his butter knife.

  And naturally, one could feel the heat from the other side of the table sure as flames atop hardwood.

  “Nigel. What has transpired.”

  He replied only after his first bite had been chewed thoroughly. “I believe we have discussed the other side’s predilection for . . . how shall one put it . . . the creative readjustment of reality—”

  “She’s a cheater and a whoring liar,” Colin spat.

  “Must you be so blunt.” Nigel put the scone down, his appetite gone. “And may I remind you again that we, too, have broken the rules? Our hands are likewise unclean, old friend, and—”

  “ ’Tis but a patch on what she hath wrought—”

  “You shall desist the interruptions. Now.”

  The pair of them glared at each other in unbroken, unwavering silence . . . to the point where Nigel knew well he would be sleeping alone this night—and that was more than fine with him.

  “Are we finished arguing?” Nigel patronized.

  Colin opened his mouth, then shut it with a clap.

  “Good. Now, as I was saying, the Creator was aware of the transgressions—on both sides.” Nigel tested the temperature of his Earl Grey tea, expecting, and finding, that it was perfect. “But I acknowledged our derelions and the fact that it is hardly fair of us to demand things of Devina that we are not prepared to honor as well.”

  “Her nature is as it always has been,” Bertie said quietly. “She cannot help who and what she is. Surely the Maker knew this from the start.”

  “I think so, yes.” Nigel took more of his tea. “There was no surprise at any of it. In fact, I received the impression . . .” Nigel chose his words carefully, as one should never speak for the Creator of all things good and evil. “I almost believe it was all expected. Her violations. Our attempt to provide aid to Jim in the form of Adrian and Edward. All of it.”

  “And the outcome of your query is?” Colin barked.

  “Unknown as of this moment. The Maker did impart news of the most unfortunate kind, however. As I was leaving, I was informed that there has been a fracture of goodwill among Jim and Edward and Adrian.”

  “Oh, they mustn’t fight,” Bertie murmured.

  “Since when?” Colin demanded.

  Nigel placed his china cup precisely in its saucer. “It just happened, evidently.”

  Colin’s brows tightened once again which meant he was thinking. Never a good thing. “What transpired?”

  “The Creator did not say, and it is not my place to inquire.” And how he wished he could impart the same restraint to the archangel’s heart. “But it is clear Jim is on his own.”

  Which was a disastrous course. The savior was strong, but had no experience in the ways of this ancient war. He was now a sitting pheasant to that demon’s proverbial bird-shot.

  “But I do believe the Maker is going to take action,” Nigel concluded.

  “Against us?” Colin asked.

  “We shall wait and see.”

  There was nothing to promise his colleagues, no faith to install in them by virtue of conversation. Once one presented something to the Maker for consideration, the matter was out of one’s hands, and there was no way of predicting how the dominoes lined up would fall.

  “I am going down there,” Colin announced. “Heron can’t be alone.”

  Why can everyone not adhere to the rules, Nigel thought. Just once.

  As he picked up his teacup and held it with his pinkie extended, he realized anew that if there was one thing that could be depended upon, it was Colin’s passion: For all that he was the intellectual among them, the truth was, by nature he was fiery, his cognitional control naught but a hard-won overlay covering his true constitution.

  “Nothing to say, Nigel?” Colin charged bitterly. “No, ‘oh, no, you may nots’?”

  Nigel focused on the castle that loomed in the near distance, and when he finally spoke, it was in a low voice that, coming from another, he would have termed as saddened. “We have an opportunity to seize this game. I would ask that you consider the action I just took—it would be foolish to follow it up—immediately—with precisely the kind of violation I presented for the Creator’s redress.”

  “Conservatism is the cousin of cowardice. I say, if the Creator has known all along of Devina’s infringements, then action could have been taken against her back in round one. That nothing has been done speaks to a condoning stance, and we should therefore be proactive in this instance.” The archangel tossed his napkin onto the table. “You are not so powerful as you think, Nigel. Or do you believe yourself so important that only after you approached a response would be marshaled?”

  In the silence that followed, Nigel found himself exhausted with all things and all bodies: Jim had brokered a deal with Devina. Colin was on the verge of going rogue. The demon was running amok.

  The last round had been lost, and there was little hope for this current one.

  “If you all will kindly excuse me.” With care, he pressed his linen napkin to his mouth and folded it with precision. Laying it neatly beside his plate, he rose to his feet. “I believe I have done enough entreating with logic and you shall do what you will. I can only ask you to be cognizant of the larger implications.” He shook his head at his old friend. “I expected to battle with the demon. I never considered that I would end up locking horns with the savior or the likes of you at the same time.”

  He did not wait for a response, but vaporized himself back to his quarters.

  Standing in privacy amid the colorful satin and silk, he felt as though he had been cast into the cold galaxy and was floating through space, going end over end . . . alone and directionless.

  There was a good chance they were going to lose the war. With things fracturing down upon the earth as well as up here in the heavens, there was nothing to offer in contest to Devina’s scheming, and she was exactly the sort to expose and exploit this weakened state.

  When he had first entered the arena with the demon, he had been so confident of victory. Now all he could see was loss.

  They were going to lose. Especially given that he should have stood up to Colin just now, but instead had caved in out of tiredness.

  For a long while, he stood in the place where his feet had stopped, his lungs struggling for breath he did not need, and yet seemed panicked at the prospect of not having. Eventually, he walked over to his ornate mirror and sat before the reflection of himself. With a soft curse, he let his outer image smoke off until all that was left of him was all that he truly was: an iridescent, rainbowed light source that glowed with every color of creation.

  He had lied to himself, he realized.

  From the start, he had believed that this war was about saving the souls in the castle—and though that was a driver, there was another truth hidden behind his heroic mantle and purpose.

  This was his home. These quarters here, the time he spent with Colin, his meals and sport with Bertie and Byron. Even Tarquin’s kind brown eyes and lanky limbs were a sight to nurture and sustain him.

  This was his life and he had love for it all, down to the wet footprints Colin left on the rugs after a b
ath, and the wine they had together when all was silent and still, and the way even the imagined skin they both assumed felt against the other’s.

  He was an immortal who in this moment knew the mortal terror of loss.

  How did the humans do it? Going through their so-short lives, not knowing for certain when the people they loved would be taken from them . . . or whether there was in fact a place for anyone on the other side.

  Perhaps that was the point, however.

  Indeed, he had passed too much time to calendar blhely going through his “days” and “nights” taking for granted that all was as he would wish it to be forever. It was only now, when he was confronted with a vast, black death, that he realized how beautiful the bright colors of this existence were.

  The Maker was a genius, he thought. Infinity resulted in insolence. But transience was the way one treasured what one had been given.

  “Nigel.”

  It was not Colin but Byron who stuck his head in between the flaps of purple and red. The archangel was tentative in his interruption, and it was a surprise that he had not announced himself.

  “I have been calling for you,” he said.

  Ah, that explained it.

  Nigel reassumed his form, recasting upon himself flesh and bone and re-covering the body with the white afternoon suit he had donned for tea.

  As he met the eyes behind those rose-colored glasses, in truth, he would have preferred an audience with Colin’s anger. Or even Devina’s duplicity, for that matter. The last thing he was interested in was Byron’s eternal faith and optimism.

  “My dear boy,” Nigel said, “perhaps we could do this another time?”

  “I shan’t be long. I’ve just come to tell you that Colin has decided not to go down.”

  Nigel rose and went to the chaise lounge by the bed. Stretching out, he found it a struggle to remain corporeal. He was tired, oh, so very tired, even in the face of that which should have relieved him.

  “We shall see how long that reticence lasts,” he murmured.

  “He has taken to his own quarters.”

  The subtext was that should Nigel want to speak with the archangel, that would be the place to find him, and the field report, as it were, was rather dear of Byron, actually. And not really a surprise. It was impossible for Byron and Bertie not to know how close Nigel and his second in command were, but everything was handled with discretion.