by J. R. Ward
“She’s going to be tied up for a while. Trust me.” From across the way, Adrian smiled like a motherfucker. “She hates messes, and I’m really fucking good at making them in her drawers.”
Vin frowned. “Watch your mouth.”
“No, not those kind of…you know…” Adrian held up both his palms. “I mean dresser drawers—”
“Did Vin give you back your earring,” Jim said abruptly to Marie-Terese. “The hoop that you lost outside the Iron Mask.”
“How did you know that I…” Marie-Terese frowned. “Well, yes, he did.”
“So where is it.”
Her hands went up to her earlobes. “Oh…no. I lost that thing again.”
And she’d had it on when she’d walked into the duplex, Vin remembered.
“The bed,” he said, on a wave of dread. “Upstairs. The bed—Devina took something off the bed. Goddamn it.”
As Vin rushed upstairs with Marie-Terese behind him, Jim supposed he should go help, but he felt like someone had Super Glued both of his ass cheeks to the couch.
Adrian put his beer down and headed out after them. “If Devina’s got a gold earring of that woman’s, we’re further into the shitter.”
Jim put his Dogfish back up to his face and let his head go lax on the pillow behind him again. Closing his eyes was dangerous because he was dizzy, so he kept his lids as low as possible while still being able to see a sliver of the once perfect, now trashed living room.
Man, wrecking things was so much easier than cleaning them up, wasn’t it.
“She was a virgin, wasn’t she,” he said softly. “The girl over that tub.”
“Yes.”
“Part of a ritual.”
There was a pause. “Yes.”
God, and he’d thought what he’d seen in the military was ugly. What he’d found this afternoon, though, had been downright tragic: A young girl like that should have been out at the mall or something, but there were going to be no more high school notebooks or biology classes or boys at dances for her.
“What’s going to happen to her body?” he asked.
“I’m assuming Devina will dispose of it. She’ll have to fairly soon.”
“So every time that bitch has to leave her place, she kills?”
“The seals last for a period of time or until someone other than her breaks them. That’s the other reason I didn’t want you going through that door.”
Great. Now he had yet another death on his conscience—because sure as shit she was going to have to protect that space again.
Jim shifted the bottle to his mouth and took a long draw. After he swallowed, he said, “What’s the big deal about that bathroom, though? There was nothing in it.”
“Nothing you saw, thank fuck.”
Eddie started pacing around. Most of the pictures and the books had been put back into some semblance of order, proof that Vin or his maid had been doing some cleanup. But nothing looked right, and Jim supposed it was kind of like some woman who’d had her salon hairdo busted apart by a stiff wind: No matter what she did to fix it, it wasn’t going to go back to the way it had been.
Eddie evened out the spines of a collection of books, his big hands precise and gentle in their movements. “The bathroom is where she keeps her mirror, which is her way in and out of this world. It’s also how she clothes herself and changes her appearance. It’s the source of everything she is, the seat of her power.”
“Why didn’t we just break the mofo, then,” Jim demanded, sitting upright. “Fuck that, you guys are so tough, why didn’t you do that years ago?”
“You break it, it owns you.” Eddie’s voice got tight. “It can capture you if you look into it, but even if you were to walk up to it blindfolded with a hammer, the instant it shattered, the shards would splinter into a thousand portals and suck you in in pieces whether or not you can see the thing.”
Abruptly, Eddie moved to a different section of the bookcase and went back to work lining more things up. “She’s going to be livid that we broke the seal and pissed off at Adrian for rifling through her shit. More than that, though, she’s going to need a change of address. She won’t want to leave that mirror in a compromised space.”
“But why would she be worried about where it was? If we can’t break the damn thing, why does it matter?”
“Well, we can bust it up—it’s just that the one who does it sacrifices himself. Permanently. The afterlife he gets is not part of what you saw when you went over to meet the bosses. We axed Devina’s predecessor that way—at considerable loss to the team.”
Suicide mission. Fantasic. “So what power do we have?”
“We can trap her in there. It’s hard to do, but it is possible.”
Multiple footsteps came down the stairs and Adrian broke the news. “We couldn’t find the earring, so we have to assume Devina’s got it.”
Eddie shook his head like another brick had been set in the load he was carrying on his back. “Damn it.”
As Vin put a protective arm around Marie-Terese, Adrian went over and picked up his coat. “Here’s the deal…Marie-Terese, you need to be at the ritual now, and you can’t go home beforehand. Not unless you want to run the risk that she’ll follow you there and compromise your son.”
The woman stiffened. “How…how did you know I have a son? Oh, wait—you did the background check on me.”
Adrian shrugged and lied, “Yeah. That’s how. You got someone to sit with your little boy?”
Marie-Terese looked up at Vin and then nodded. “Yes, I do. And if she can’t stay, my service will find me somebody to relieve her.”
“Good, because we couldn’t purify your house or set up a perimeter without giving Devina a heads-up where you live, and I do not want to fight her in front of your son.”
“I just need to make a call.”
“Wait a second,” Vin cut in. “Why can’t we just take care of the part of it that effects Marie-Terese here and now?”
“We don’t have what we need to do it, and as Eddie said, there’s a better chance of success if we go back to where you opened the door to Devina. First we get her out of you—then if I can’t find the earring, we do the same for Marie-Terese. The good news is that the tie is not all that strong and she will be safest with us. I’m sure you agree—we take no chances.”
Evidently, Vin was on board with that one because he nodded grimly. “Absolutely not.”
“Call your babysitter now, ’kay?” As the woman got out her phone, Adrian nodded at Jim. “You and Eddie are going to oversee the ritual at the old house, but I’ll help with the preparations before I leave.”
Jim frowned, wondering about the hard line of the guy’s jaw. “Where are you going to be?”
“I’m getting the fucking diamond and that earring back.”
Eddie cursed under his breath. “I don’t like you going in alone.”
As he looked at his partner, Adrian’s eyes became ancient. Positively ancient. “We gotta use every weapon we have. And let’s face it, what I can do to her is one of the best we’ve got.”
Yeah, and what do you want to bet that was not a case of giving her a mani-pedi, Jim thought.
As details were arranged for the night’s battle, Jim knew he had to get back into game-head. This numbed-out, floaty-ass routine had to end, and not just because they were going to engage with the enemy. The thing was, up until now, he’d assumed that “fallen angel” meant perpetual life, but that was clearly not the case—and if he lost Eddie and Adrian before he learned more of the basics, he was fucked.
About ten minutes later, he and the boys headed back down in the building’s elevator and out of the Commodore. The truck had been left no more than a block away, and the short walk through the cool air helped.
“First stop, Hannaford supermarket,” Adrian said as he got behind the wheel again.
Jim and Eddie stuffed themselves into the cab and Jim shut the door. “I’ll want to go let Dog out if we’re going to b
e gone all night.”
“And I left my bike at your place anyway.” Adrian checked the side-view mirror and pulled out of the parking space.
As they went along, Jim thought about the two guys he was riding with and wondered about the kind of tricks they had up their sleeves—aside from evidently being able to choose when and by whom they were seen. And being able to get through locks and door chains—which he’d seen not only at Devina’s warehouse, but Vin’s duplex—
Something dawned on him.
Jim looked around Eddie’s thick chest at Adrian. “That night the three of us went out together…Thursday night. Why did you point Devina out to me like you wanted me to fuck her?”
Adrian stopped at a red light and glanced over…only to resume looking out the front windshield in silence.
“Why, Adrian.” Less question, more growl this time.
The guy’s broad palm went around the steering wheel in a slow circle. “I told you. I didn’t want to work with you.”
Jim frowned. “You didn’t goddamn know me.”
“And I didn’t want to work with you and I didn’t like you and I’m an asshole.” He held one finger up, the conversational signal for hold your horses. “But I did apologize. Remember?”
Jim leaned back against the seat. “You set me up. You practically gave me to her.”
“I didn’t follow her out into that parking lot. I didn’t fuck her—”
“I wouldn’t have seen her but for you!”
“What the hell are you talking about? There’s no way in hell you would have missed the likes of—”
“Shut up. Both of you.” Eddie uncrossed his arms like he was prepared to break things up with force if he had to. “Water under the bridge. Let it go, Jim.”
Jim ground his molars. Man, this was just like being in with Matthias’s bunch of sharks. Even the people you worked with, who supposedly were on the same side as you, were capable of serving you up like dinner to the enemy.
“Tell me something, Eddie,” he bit out.
“What.”
“That binding scale you were talking about. Is sex one of the ways Devina binds herself to people.” When there was only silence, he said, “Is it. Is it.”
“Yes,” the guy replied finally.
“Fuck you, Adrian,” Jim said loud and hard. “Fuck you for real.”
Adrian wrenched the wheel to the right, slammed on the brakes, and threw the truck into park. As the horns of other cars screamed and people cursed, the son of a bitch got out and marched around the hood wearing the expression of a guy who had a crowbar in his hand.
He yanked open Jim’s door. “Get out and let’s do this.”
Jim’s hair trigger went off, fueled by that dead innocent girl, the fear on Marie-Terese’s face, the aggression that Adrian was throwing off…and the fact that he’d had a demon straddle his hips and ride him until they both came.
It was so on.
“Can you two steakheads not do this in public?” Eddie barked.
No chance of that. Jim’s fists were up and ready to fly before the soles of his boots hit the shoulder of the road, and Adrian was likewise posed for punches.
“I said I was sorry,” Adrian spat. “You think I like this job of mine? You think I was ready to come back and break in a fucking greenhorn?”
Jim didn’t bother talking. He just hauled back and punched the bastard right in the jaw, knuckles snapping out and making contact in the blink of an eye. The impact was so hard, the fallen angel’s skull kicked back and sent his great-looking hair into a full Farrah Fawcett, with locks blowing in the wind.
“That was payback for up in Devina’s bathroom, motherfucker,” Jim said. “Now I’ll work off the other shit.”
Adrian spat blood. “I knocked you out to save your ass, son.”
“Fuck. Off. Gramps.”
Last word anyone got in for a while.
Adrian bull-rushed, catching Jim around the middle and pile-driving him back against the side of the truck. As the impact stung him from ear to heel, Jim just shrugged off the pain in spite of the body-wide dent he was sure he’d left in the quarter panel. Without skipping a beat, he grabbed onto Adrian’s hair and head-butted the guy’s nose, and as the thing went geyser all over both of them, Ad’s response was just as fast—he returned the insult by kneeing Jim in the groin so hard, he clutched his balls and gagged.
Fuuuuuuuuuuck. Nothing made a man see stars like having his hey-nannies in a head-on collision with solid bone, and as his vision went wavy, his gut thought seriously about air-mailing the beer he’d just had at Vin’s all over Ad’s shirt. Willpower, and only willpower, had him overcoming cock agony and lunging forward, grabbing Ad around the calves, and forcing him off balance onto the grassy ground.
Rolling around. Lots of rolling around. Fists flying. Grunts traded. Mud everywhere.
The only thing separating them from a pair of animals was the fact that they were clothed.
And the only thing that stopped them was Eddie stepping in and picking Jim up by the back of the collar and the waistband of his jeans and lifting him out of range. After Jim was hauled free from the fight and tossed aside like a branch that had fallen off a tree, he landed facedown on brown sod, his entire body throbbing like something out of a commercial for HeadOn.
Or in his case, AlloverthefuckingbodyOn.
Breathing in cold air that smelled like fresh dirt and blood, he hurt all over and felt a lot better at the same time. Easing onto his back, he let his hands fall to the sides as he looked up at the milky sky. In the clouds above, he thought he saw the face of the girl he had left behind in that bathroom: She seemed to be staring down at him, watching over him.
Lifting an arm, he tried to touch her face, but the swirling winds of spring shifted the cloud cover, disappearing her lovely, tragic features.
He was going to find out who she was.
And he was going to do right by her.
Just as he had done right by his mother.
Those fuckers in that Camaro had been the first three men he’d killed.
“Are we done, children?” Eddie snapped. “Or do I need to spank your asses until it’ll be next winter before you can sit down again.”
Jim tilted his head and glanced over at Adrian. The bastard looked no better than Jim felt.
“Truce?” the guy said through bloody lips.
Jim inhaled as deeply as he could—until pain stopped his ribs from expanding any more. Well, hell. He might not be able to trust either one of them, but he needed help—and he had a tragic expertise in working with people who were shits.
“Yeah,” he replied roughly. “Truce.”
CHAPTER
36
“Okay, I love you. And I’ll be home later tonight. Be good for Quinesha. What?” As Vin drove them over to the residential part of town, Marie-Terese listened to her son speak and got choked up. His voice was so near and so far. “Yes. Yes, you may. I love you. Bye.”
She hit the end button on her phone and stared down at the screen, waiting for Vin to ask how the conversation had gone. It was something her ex had always done. Anytime she got on a phone, whether it was a telemarketer or the housekeeper or someone for him, Mark had had to know everything.
Except Vin didn’t ask and didn’t seem to be expecting her to fill him in. And the space was…nice. She liked how it gave her the power to choose, and it spoke volumes about respect and trust and all those things she hadn’t gotten the first time around.
Thank you, she wanted to say. Instead, she murmured, “He wanted ice cream. Guess I’m a horrible mother, huh. Probably going to spoil his dinner. He eats early. At five.”
Vin’s hand covered hers. “You are not a horrible mother. I can assure you.”
As they went by a bus stop, she looked out of her window. The people standing in the Plexiglas box all stared at the M6 while Vin drove by, and when another group of pedestrians glanced over at the car a little later, she had a sense that everywhere
Vin went, he drew eyes of envy and awe…and greed.
“Mark liked nice cars, too,” she said for no particular reason. “He was a Bentley man.”
God, she could remember riding in those cars of his. He’d gotten a new one every year as soon as the fresh models came out, and in the beginning, she had sat in the passenger seat beside him with her chin up and her hands stroking the leather. Back then, when people had stared, her chest had swelled with pride that the man who owned the car was hers, that she was a part of some exclusive club of luxury that barred everyone else, that she was a queen with her king.
Not anymore. Now she saw the ogling faces as nothing more than people caught up in a fantasy. Just because you could drive or sit in a fancy BMW didn’t mean you had the winning lottery ticket in the life sweepstakes. Turned out she had been far, far happier when she’d been on the hard sidewalk rather than the soft bucket seat.
Far better off, too, considering where she’d ended up.
“But I am a bad mother,” she murmured. “I lied to him. I had to.”
“You did what you needed to in order to survive.”
“I’m going to have to keep lying to him. I don’t want him ever to know.”
“And there’s no reason for him to.” Vin shook his head. “I think a parent’s job is to protect their kids. Maybe it’s old-school, but that’s the way I feel. There’s no reason he has to go through what you’ve been suffering with. That you’ve had to deal with it is plenty.”
The thought that had been percolating in her brain on and off since she’d been with Vin the night before resurfaced. And she couldn’t think of a reason not to say it out loud.
“I did something to survive, but sometimes I think…” She cleared her throat. “I’m a college graduate. I have a degree in marketing. I could have gotten a job.”
At least, theoretically she could have. One thing that had stopped her had been the fact that she hadn’t been one hundred percent confident in her fake ID. If she’d actually put in for real work, she wasn’t sure whether her social security number would have come up as someone else’s.
