by J. R. Ward
“G.B.! What the hell?” A man leaned into the room. “I’ve been looking for you for a half hour. You can’t be late for this kind of stuff.”
G.B. bolted out of his chair and glanced at his watch. “Oh, God, Dave, I’m so sorry—”
“Spare me, okay? Just get your ass up to Rehearsal Three, now. We’ve moved in there because they’re installing new bulbs stage right and the noise is ridiculous.”
As the guy took off, Cait flipped her sketchbook shut and fumbled to get it in her purse. “I’m so sorry.”
“No, it’s okay, he’s tightly wound.” And yet G.B. looked stressed, all that relaxation gone. “I probably should go. I had no idea that so much time had passed.”
Cait got up, and in the process dumped half her purse out. “Damn it. No, no, I’ve got it—you’d better head off—I can find my way out.”
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely—”
As she looked up, he came in fast, and before she knew it, he’d planted a kiss on her mouth. Quick, soft, but the kind of thing that left no room to question where he wanted things to go: Friendship was not it.
Straightening, he said softly, “I’ll call you tonight.”
“Oh, okay, sure, thanks…”
And then he was gone, running off, his footfalls receding down the hall.
Left by herself, Cait looked around the room, as if the vending machine or maybe the refrigerator Chuck wasn’t allowed in could give her advice, answers, strength.
After a dry spell that had lasted how long, two great guys appeared at once.
Well, one guy was great. The other was … a maelstrom.
Come to think of it, put the pair of them together, and you had the perfect man.
Nature, however, didn’t work that way in this case. And neither did she. She couldn’t do both; she just didn’t have it in her.
The question was, who did she pick?
Chapter
Twenty-six
It had been a while since Adrian had been to the land down under—and no, not Australia. As he stared at the walls that stretched up indefinitely, his stomach turned, and he wished like hell he hadn’t told Jim he’d keep Devina busy.
Naturally, she’d propped herself up on her worktable, like she wanted to force him to look over there.
“Well,” she said in that deep, velvety voice of hers, “did you miss me?”
Glancing in the demon’s direction, Adrian felt his hatred surge. She was sitting there all crossed legs and cleavage exposed, clearly enjoying the fact that he’d given her a metaphysical jingle. Hah. What he’d actually like to “give” her was a stab in the back—just like what she’d had one of her harpies do to Eddie.
“Not in the slightest,” he heard himself answer.
“Aw, Adrian.” She hopped off her perch and started walking over, all hip sway and then some. “Still bitter about your buddy?”
“No. What’s done is done.”
That pout of hers relented a little. “So phlegmatic. You aren’t going to therapy by any chance, are you? I’ve found it’s helped me tremendously.”
“With what? Coming to terms with the fact that you’re going to lose this game?”
She stopped about a foot away from him, and her no-bullshit voice came out. “Don’t be so sure, angel. This round is going to go my way.”
“Bet you said that about the other three you lost, didn’t you.” He leaned in toward her, even though it put extra stress on his bad leg. “Losing all those times must have come as a shocker.”
“I’ve got two flags.”
“Only one of which you’ve earned.”
Now she smiled, her luscious lips peeling off her sharp white teeth. “Both are still mine.” She pointed over to a stout oak door that had iron reinforcements all over it. “Cast your eyes on my decor.”
Sure enough, over that exit, there were two of the game’s flags, mounted on the jambs.
Man, that pissed him off.
“You’re angry at Jim, aren’t you,” the demon drawled.
“No.”
“Liar.” Rising up on her tiptoes, she licked across his mouth, her tongue lingering on his flesh. “Isn’t that why you’ve come? To get back at him?”
“No.” If that was the case, he’d have left the other angel high and dry.
“Oh, really?” Her hands went to his chest, palms flattening on his pecs as her hips brushed the front of his. “I think you did.”
His body revolted at the proximity, his skin prickling up, his shoulders tightening into steel cables, his gut twisting even more. And all that got worse as he looked past her falsely beautiful face to that table.
Impossible not to remember what she’d done to him on it.
Abruptly, he wondered if Eddie hadn’t been right. A long time ago, after Adrian had finally gotten free from down here, his best friend had warned him that that kind of abuse lingered not just in the mind and on emotional levels, but in the soul, in the bones, in the blood.
Ad had brushed all that off, of course, but now…
Staring at that table, he thought that Eddie might have been right.
“You know,” Devina said as her hands traveled down, down, down his torso, “sleeping with me would destroy him. He’s very jealous of me, possessive—it borders on stalkerish.”
Adrian refocused on the demon’s jet-black, glittering eyes. “What?”
“Jim’s obsessed with me. Violently so. It’s actually very sweet. And your best revenge is to fuck me. He’ll never get over it—his best friend with his best girl. Come on, it’s the stuff of movies, right?”
As her words sank in, Adrian’s brows popped. Yeah, wowzer. He’d thought Devina was a lot of things over the aeons they’d been going around and around with each other, but he’d never felt as though she was out of her mind in the more conventional sense.
Like in Stacy-from–Wayne’s World nutso.
Go fig.
“Did you say you were in therapy?” Adrian shook his head. “Does that also include medication or are you trying to go natural?”
“I don’t believe in anti-depressants. I think they cloud the mind.”
Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.
She eased back against him. “Now, where were we?”
You were channeling the role of cray-cray-never-was-girlfriend and I was negotiating with my stomach to make sure all that toast from breakfast stayed put.
Devina slid her palm between his legs, and Adrian flinched, his eyes clamping shut, his head turning away.
God, they had hit this corner before, her coming on to him, him going along with it, them having sex because … well, sometimes he liked to feel the dirtiness on the outside of himself. It was the only relief he’d ever gotten from the stench she’d infected him with on the inside.
She’s in me, Jim. She’s inside of me …
Devina pressed that mouth of hers against the side of his throat as she rubbed him up and down, breasts pushing into his chest, long leg sneaking around the back of his own.
“Don’t tell me that you don’t want this,” she breathed. “Because I know you do.”
Adrian opened his mouth to tell her the fifteen different reasons he in fact did not—and then it dawned on him. Yes, he was numb and disgusted with himself and her … but in the past, that had never discouraged his cock. Now, though?
The phone was ringing and nobody was picking it up, so to speak.
He was utterly flaccid. Which was the definition of impotence, wasn’t it.
Adrian glanced back over at that worktable and smiled. “You’re right, Devina.”
She let her head fall back and stared at him from under heavy, seductive lids. “I always am. So how about I get to work on you?”
“Okay. Yeah.”
The demon dropped to her knees and pushed her hands up his thighs. “You’re doing the right thing, Adrian.”
As she reached for his fly and slowly undid his pants, he helped her out, pulling his muscle
shirt up his abs, staring down as if he gave a shit about what she was doing to him.
When his jeans hit the floor, there was a moment of pause, as if she were surprised with all he didn’t have to offer.
“I’m conflicted,” he said. “About Jim.”
“Ah …” She nuzzled his flaccid sex. “I can help with that.”
As her wet mouth engulfed his lazy cock, Adrian just looked straight ahead. He felt the suction, the warmth, the sensation of her reaching under and stroking his balls … but it was no different than someone brushing against his forearm or patting him on the back.
Before he’d done that little swaperoo with Matthias? He’d been capable of getting hard at a moment’s notice, even with Devina.
Now? Nada.
Devina retracted the suction, pulling back until his head popped out from between her red lips. As he just flopped back to a limp vertical, her brows dropped down like she was confronted with an anomaly of unimaginable proportions.
Adrian just shrugged to himself. Jim had asked him to keep the demon busy, and her trying to get him up was as good a time-passer as any. Rather amusing, actually—
A small voice in him, one that was nearly buried, pointed out that it wasn’t amusing at all. That it was one more piece of shrapnel in him, another nail in a coffin that was nearly complete, thanks to her having killed Eddie.
Ad didn’t care, though. He was dead whether he was up on the Earth dicking around with the war, or down here getting a blow job that got him nowhere.
Didn’t matter.
“Suck harder,” Adrian drawled as he gripped her head and thrust into her mouth. “Let me feel you on me.”
The warehouse district in Caldwell was exactly that: warehouses. In a district.
No big revelation there.
And yet, as Jim slowed his Harley down in the middle of a long block, he saw the area through new eyes: Desolate, really, even though a lot of the facilities had been renovated and turned into pricey condos.
Killing the bike’s engine, he twisted around. “You okay back there?”
Sissy nodded and dismounted, shucking her helmet and shaking out her hair. As she looked around, he studied her. Built long and thin, she hardly seemed the type who would prefer the cold wind in her face and nothing but an engine and two tires between her body and the road … but she had asked to take the hog.
And he had said yes.
Rising off the seat, he kicked out the stand and leaned the bike to the side.
“What are we doing here?” she asked as she glanced over at him.
Man, he hated being back on this street, in front of this particular building. “The entrance is around the corner.”
As he led the way, he could feel her following him, and he found himself wanting to move her in beside him. Maybe put an arm around her shoulder or hold her hand—he just didn’t want her to be alone in this, and shit knew that could happen even if you were with someone.
But he let that impulse go as they came up to a set of industrial-size doors.
Willing the things open, he held them wide so she could pass by and go up the short flight of stairs.
Suppose they could have just walked through. He really wanted to be a gentleman with her, though.
After going through the second set of security doors, he gave her a moment in the stark “lobby” to look around in case that jogged her memory.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been here before, have I?” she said.
Devina probably hadn’t brought her through the main entrance, no. “The cargo elevator’s over here.”
The lift was big enough to park a car in, and as he punched the button that had a “5” on it, he reminded himself that coming here had been his bright idea.
Jesus, he hoped he was doing the right thing.
Ding. Ding. Ding. Annnnnd…
Ding.
After he threw the manual release, the doors split wide at their midline, and the hall outside still carried the paint smell of new construction.
As was typical of these warehouse overhauls, the decor was deliberately rustic, the hall dark and gloomy as if on purpose, the brick walls still sporting their original, sloppy mortar job, the wooden floors burdened with the choppy, stained patina of heavy use.
Sissy moved forward, beelining for the nickel-plated aluminum door that let in to where the demon had previously kept her collection, her mirror, and herself.
Which explained why there were seven dead bolt locks on the thing.
Placing a hand on the portal, Sissy closed her eyes and leaned in until her forehead touched the metal.
“I can feel … something …” She was frowning so hard, he caught the expression even from where he was standing.
“You don’t have to go inside.”
“Yes, I do.”
With that, she gripped the handle, pushed down—and it opened, clearly because the last person here had fucked up and not locked things behind them when they’d left.
Empty. Space.
Last time he’d been here, it had looked like something out of a flea market. Shit had been crammed in everywhere: bureaus crowding the varnished floors, clocks covering the walls, the kitchen layered in knives. Now it was nothing but a bowling alley without lanes and pins.
Sissy’s borrowed running shoes made no sound as she walked around, arms crossed, head down.
She ended up at the bathroom.
The door was open, the gray marble flooring the color of a thunderstorm, the white accents bright as snow. As she stepped across the threshold, his reflex was to grab her and bring her back.
Closing his eyes, Jim saw blood everywhere, flowing down her pale skin, coating her blond hair, turning the porcelain tub red.
“I remember…”
Her voice was so quiet, it barely cut into his reliving the nightmare—but it was enough to snap him out of the replay. Walking over, his footsteps were not like hers: His combat boots sounded out loud and proud, and he wanted it that way. He wanted to disturb the stillness and the emptiness, wanted to break through reality and invade the past, changing it, altering its course, taking innocence back.
But of course, that wasn’t going to happen.
As he closed in on that bathroom, he remembered the door, that fucking door that he’d opened and…
Pulling his brain back from that abyss, he wondered whether Devina had rented the loft? Owned it? The place didn’t seem to be listed for resale, but it was empty.
Knowing her, she’d bought it before moving in and was determined to keep it. She hated losing things that were hers.
Now he was in the bathroom, too.
All the mess had been cleaned up as if it had never been, the milky light from the smoked windows across the way penetrating the space, pulling out soft shadows.
Sissy knelt down beside the tub. Running a hand up and down the porcelain, she shook her head. “Here … there was something here.”
When he didn’t reply, she twisted around and looked up at him. “Wasn’t there.”
Chapter
Twenty-seven
Up above the Earth, past the clouds and the sky, farther still away from the atmosphere, even more distant than the galaxy, the Milky Way, the universe … the archangel Albert was sitting down to tea in a grove not far from the Manse of Souls.
In truth, he was not hungry a’tall.
“Bertie, my dear friend, whate’er ails you?”
Looking up across the dainty sandwiches and the silver tea service, he met the archangel Byron’s eyes. Behind rose-colored glasses, they were grave, and that was the saddest commentary on the status of the game. Even sadder, somehow, than the fact that there were only two flags flying on the castle’s parapet, no longer three: Byron was the optimist among the four of them, always believing in a kind and just destiny for the quick and the dead … and the angels.
To have him aggrieved?
Bad. Very bad.
“Shall I serve the tea?” Bertie said by wa
y of reply. “I shan’t think we’ll be joined.”
After all, when he’d arrived initially and found only Byron seated, he had gone in search of the other two … Nigel, who was their leader; and Colin, who was their warrior. Alas, however, there had been no answer when he’d approached the closed flap of Nigel’s beautiful silk tent, and likewise, Colin’s camp by the river had been empty.
Now, in Colin’s case, it was not unusual for him to disappear without commentary, but Nigel never departed without checking in. And he had not been inside the manse, either. Indeed, as Bertie had searched therein, he had found nothing located but the souls of the righteous passing a peaceful eternity within the protected walls.
Which was as it should be—but might ne’er be again if this war was lost.
He supposed it was possible that Nigel had gone to see the Maker. That would be the only reason he would break away without word—
“Bertie? I indicated yes, please?”
Refocusing, he found that the other archangel had his porcelain teacup held outward. “Oh, right, terribly sorry.”
He picked up the silver pot and poured out a fragrant amber stream with practiced ease. Then he did the same for himself, accepting the sugar cubes when they were offered to him and declining the scones.
“Perhaps a sandwich, then?” Byron inquired.
Stirring with a silver spoon, Bertie glanced over the perfectly constructed deviled-ham squares and circular cucumber-and-cream-cheese delectables. There were tiny petits fours, too, and little pieces of fudge, and orange slices as well.
He could not eat any of it.
“When this started,” he said quietly, “it never occurred to one that one’s side might lose. One never considered that possibility.”
“Yes.” Byron added some milk out of a delicate pitcher. “I feel much the same.”
In fact, Bertie tried to imagine an existence different from this and could not. His most enjoyable job was to be a gatekeeper, along with the others, to welcome the new arrivals and to help smooth the way for them—after all, Heaven could be a shock to those who had left the Earth conflicted or in grief, and further, even those who had been prepared to go could mourn the loss of their family, their friends, their life. Fortunately, any such strife ne’er lasted as soon as they understood that time here had no meaning, that moments and millennia were interchangeable in the manse—and thus they would be reunited in the blink of an eye, even if it took fifty years.
