by J. R. Ward
“Do we have to make choices tonight?”
“You’ll see me again?”
Something about the way he asked touched her. Maybe it was because he seemed so unsure of the answer. “Yes. I will.”
His mouth came down on hers, brushing lightly once. Twice. And again. “Good. Tomorrow night. Can I pick you up?”
“Yes.” She wrapped her arms around him and eased against his body. “I live at two fifteen Greenly Drive. Do you need to write that down?”
“No more than I did your number.” As one of his hands threaded into her hair, his lids lowered. “Give me a little more before I go.”
They were still kissing ten minutes later. And it took her another five to actually get into the car.
“I’m going to think about you all night,” he said just before he shut her door.
Oh, God, and what would he do to pass all those empty hours, she wondered with a flare of heat.
“Don’t keep your hands to yourself,” she heard herself say.
“Don’t worry, I won’t.” He shut her door. “Drive safe.”
Stepping back, he gave her a wave and then walked off to one of the motorcycles that was parked by the side of the diner. Thanks to the neon glow from the signage, she got to watch him throw a leg over, jump the engine, and skid out, tearing off into the night with a roar.
She didn’t remember the ride home.
Because in spite of the uncertainty of things, she was floating.
Chapter
Thirty-five
As Adrian looked at Sissy across the kitchen table, he wasn’t thinking about the question she’d just asked about innocents in Hell. But his brain was, in fact, far, far south, down below, back with Devina.
Talk about a truly bizarre way of wasting a day. He’d done a lot of things on the sliding scale of sex, but watching a demon desperately try to give him a hard-on? New territory. And considering how flustered Devina had become? Shit, he should have volunteered for impotence decades ago.
Denial was that demon’s self-destruct button.
And then she’d followed him around Target, and gone to a fucking restaurant that had had screaming kids in it.
He was practically glowing from the satisfaction.
“So is it possible?” Sissy prompted.
“I’m sorry?”
“Well, assuming there are more like me down there, can we get them out?”
“Oh, shit, I don’t know.” He pushed a hand through his hair. “To be honest, I’ve never given it any thought. Maybe Eddie would know.”
“Who’s Eddie?”
Okay, yup, that still hurt like a bitch. “A friend. He knows everything about the game.”
“Would he talk to you about it? Or maybe me?”
“Probably not.” Eddie wasn’t talking to anybody anytime soon. “Listen, if I were in your shoes, I’d just hang here. Everything’s going to be over one way or the other very soon.”
The hard expression that came over the girl’s face made him realize that “woman” covered her description much better. “That’s kind of pointless, though, isn’t it. What if the only way to save them is to get them out now?”
“But why? So they can watch the destruction of the world? Besides, if we do win, I imagine they’ll be free anyway.”
“Do you know that for certain?”
“No. But there are other issues. Devina doesn’t let go of things easily.” For fuck’s sake, he would still be down there if she had her way. “You have to pry her possessions away from her.”
“That’s not my problem. It’s hers.”
Adrian felt his brows go up. “Let me get this straight. You’ve been in her wall, you know what it’s like—and you’d risk ending up there forever for a bunch of people you don’t know.” He leaned in. “Because don’t kid yourself. Devina released you, but you’re the only one I’ve ever seen who’s gotten out. If she gets a chance, she’ll chain you again in a heartbeat—and it’s hard to imagine a better way of guaranteeing that than to fuck around with her shit.”
As he resettled into his chair, he couldn’t believe what had just come out of his mouth. If he wanted Jim’s head back in the game? Maybe having Sissy self-destruct would be the perfect way to do it—that angel would blame the demon, not this woman with the noble ideas, and would undoubtedly go on a rampage.
He should have kept his piehole closed.
“It’s not like I’ve got anything here,” she said. “And I’d rather go out doing something than sitting around like a piece of furniture, waiting for my fate to be delivered on my head.”
“I thought you and Jim were together.”
“What?”
Adrian hadn’t expected to be off on that one. Clearly he was. “Guess I was wrong.”
Sissy shook her head. “No, yeah, totally wrong. He’s just … he took care of me, that’s all.”
And apparently “took care of” did not mean “banged all night long while we were in his bedroom alone.”
Adrian found himself rubbing his face again. “Sorry. I read things wrong.”
“Jim would never do anything like that … with me … um … ever. Me, neither. I’m not … um, yeah.”
From the blush that hit her puss to the way she fidgeted in her chair, she was obviously not comfortable with the subject, but it wasn’t like he was inclined to push it anyway.
Adrian got to his feet. “Listen, my advice to you is to stay out of as much of this as you can. You’ve already been compromised, and you’ve got a measure of freedom now—that’s as much restitution as anyone can expect in this fucked-up world.” He looked at the clock over the stove, not really expecting it to be operational—but hey, check it. The thing was working for once. “I gotta crash. Tomorrow the focus needs to be back on the war.”
Limping out, he paused in the doorway and glanced over his shoulder. Sissy was sitting still as an inanimate object, surrounded by the messy surplus he and Devina had chosen for her. Except for that long blond hair, she seemed ancient, the old-fashioned appliances and worn floor new and fresh compared to her aura.
Adrian kept going, pulling himself up the stairs by the balustrade, rounding the half landing by the grandfather clock slowly, taking a breather before tackling the last dozen steps up to the second-story foyer.
He didn’t go to his bedroom.
As he made his way to the attic door and flipped the light switch at the bottom of the steep rise, his left leg was really lagging, and the scent of flowers depressed him to the point that he nearly decided to sleep on the stairwell.
He was getting tired of the constant refrain of, If only Eddie were here…
Unfortunately, he didn’t think it was ever going to be any less apropos than it was right now.
The angel had left his cane behind.
As Sissy got up and started to fold her new clothes neatly, she spied it leaning against the counter by the stove.
It wasn’t as if she didn’t see Adrian’s point. When she had been in Hell, the only thing she had prayed for was getting out. Now that that had been granted, it seemed like a criminal lack of self-preservation to want to run any risks with herself.
But if Jim had thought that way, she’d still be down there.
I thought you and Jim were together.
Oh, God, had he really said that? Thought that?
Jim was the savior for a lot of people. Getting her out of there had been part of his job description—right?
Remembering the sight of him by that bathtub, she thought, Well, it might have been a little more personal than that. But things ended there between them.
Right…?
With the clothes back in the bags, she picked up her load and headed out—only to snag the cane as she passed by, tucking it under her arm.
As she walked through the house, she wondered where Jim was, what he was doing, whether he was fighting or going a diplomatic route in whatever conflict he found.
Probably not diplomacy.
&n
bsp; Up in her room, she was surprised to find that when she opened the drawers, a waft of lavender rose up into her nose. The liner paper was bright and fresh as the day it must have been laid down, the flower pattern winding its violet and green way all around the fragrant sheets. With quick efficiency, she filled the dresser, shut everything up tight … reopened things and picked out a pair of yoga pants and a loose T-shirt.
Adrian had not been too far off base on her size. Both were baggy, but they were a better fit than Jim’s gigantic clothes by a mile.
She had no idea where the laundry was in the house, but for all she knew, they washed things in the sink and hung them to dry—
Sissy froze.
Above the bureau, there was an old mirror hanging on the wall, its glass wrinkly, like the ones that had been in her grandmother’s house. And as she met her own eyes in its uneven surface, her reflection was at once stunning and entirely unremarkable—it wasn’t as if her features had changed, or her hair was another color.
There was something way different, however.
Glowing around the crown of her head, like a diadem of subtle candlelight, was a halo.
Just like the one Jim had.
Reaching up, she patted at it and felt nothing, no barrier or resistance. It was there, though. The mirror might have been an antique, but it worked just fine—
Creaking overhead brought her eyes to the ceiling. Someone was walking around up there, the footfalls uneven—either because the path was obstructed or…
Grabbing the angel’s cane, she rushed out. She wasn’t sure where the way up was, but she was damn well going to find it.
So many doors. Into bedrooms. Another sitting room. Bathrooms. She kept going, passing by the main staircase, and finding much of the same on the other side—
Down at the far end, light glowed around the jambs of a shut door, and she knew before going over and opening it that there would be a set of stairs going up.
“Adrian?” she called out.
Abruptly the lights flickered, browning briefly as if from a power surge—and it nearly dissuaded her from going up. When they stayed on, however, she decided to ascend.
“Adrian…?”
Breathing in, she smelled the most amazing bouquet of flowers, the scent a complex, multilayering of fragrance that put to shame those liner papers big-time. And then she heard chanting, soft, repetitive, insistent.
She tiptoed up the rest of the way, peering around the rough-cut balustrade at the top.
The flames of black candles waved lazily in invisible currents, bathing the attic from rafter to floorboard in soft, warm light. Cedar blanket chests and antique Louis Vuitton traveling trunks cast shadows, while hanging rods of old clothes appeared to move in the fluctuating illumination. Cobwebs hung in gossamer strings, undulating as if by the breath of ghosts, and the wind whistled through cracks somewhere.
But none of that really registered.
Halfway down the expanse, Adrian was sitting cross-legged, and rocking back and forth with his eyes closed. Stretched out before him, on a bed of mismatched blankets, was what she guessed had to be a body. A white sheet covered the person from head to toe, nothing showing of what was underneath.
The mourning was obvious in the tenor of the song, the painful tension in Adrian’s face—
The angel stopped abruptly, his head ripping around to her.
“I—I’m sorry,” she said, holding out his cane. “You left this downstairs. I thought … you might need it.”
There was a good distance between them, twenty feet or so, but she saw the tears on his cheeks before he swept them away with a brisk hand.
“Leave it there,” Adrian answered in a voice that cracked.
“Who is that?” she asked.
“None of your business.”
“Is it your brother?” A man like that wasn’t going to be upset over just anybody, and that certainly wasn’t a woman under there. Way too big. “Is it?”
Adrian turned back to the shroud. “Close enough.”
“I’m sorry for your loss.”
“So am I.”
Sissy was careful with his cane, laying it on top of one of the chests and making sure it didn’t roll off. It seemed like the only way she could take care of him.
“Did she take him from you?” she asked.
No reason to specify the “she.”
“Yeah, she did.”
As Sissy stared across what seemed like miles as opposed to yards, she found the tableau of loss painful to look at. This was what her family was living through, her mom and her dad, her sister … her friends, her roommates and teachers at Union, her old teammates.
All because of that demon.
How many? she wondered. How many lived with the aftermath of what she had done?
She remembered Jim sitting in that bathroom, weeping by the tub.
“Was he an angel, too?” she asked gruffly.
“More like a saint.” Adrian reached out and tugged at the sheet, smoothing the tiniest wrinkle. “Eddie was the very best of all of us. That was why she killed him.”
“When did this happen?”
“No more than a week ago.” Adrian rubbed his face again. “I was right beside him, I should have heard or seen … something. It just happened so fast.”
“I need to help.” As his head came back around, Sissy crossed her arms over her chest. “Whatever it takes to get her, I need in on it.”
The angel stared at her for the longest time. Then he returned to his friend. “I’m getting an idea why Jim thinks you’re special.”
“Wha …?” She couldn’t have heard that right.
“And if you want to go after Devina? You want to ingest that poison and maybe die again from it?” He nodded. “That’s your right. I won’t stop you.”
Sissy exhaled. “Thank you.”
“Not something you should be grateful for, honey. Now … if you don’t mind?”
“Your cane’s right here.” She laid a hand on it even though he wasn’t looking. “Right here.”
“Thanks.”
Sissy whispered her way down the steep stairwell and closed the door silently. Then she tiptoed back to her own room.
Inside her skin, she was not quiet, however.
Her anger was roaring.
Chapter
Thirty-six
Jim left Nigel where the archangel lay. Not like the guy needed to go anywhere—and Devina couldn’t touch him now that he was gone.
Back at the tea table, he stared at the four empty seats and knew he was getting nowhere wasting time up here. And yet he couldn’t seem to leave, his feelings a complex interplay of guilt, mourning, and anger—
What the fuck?
Far across the lawn, off in the distance, a cloud had gathered close to the ground, something the size of a car or truck. At first it seemed as though it was smoke, but then as it started to move, he realized it was made up of countless—
A swarm.
It was a swarm of what seemed to be black wasps.
And it began to head his way, rushing forward in an accelerating wave pattern, surging with coordinated menace.
Jim bolted, heading for the moat. Thighs pumping, arms up, he ran the shit out of the grass, great strides taking him to the water source—
He didn’t make it.
The impact was like getting pelted with cobblestones all over the back of his body, and then he was engulfed, the stings blanketing him, assaulting him from every angle while he was dragged back from the water that might have saved him. He swung his arms like a crazy man, trying to bat the attack away, but there were so many of them…
He was spun around and elevated, the pricking pain fuzzing out his brain and dulling his response as his feet left the ground. And then there was a great suction, the pull so violent he felt as though his skin was going to go with it.
The swarm left him on a oner, peeling free just as fast as it had attacked.
Coalescing, it became Col
in, the archangel. And the fury in his face was epic.
With a roar so loud it registered as agony in the ears, Colin attacked—and it was so not the same as being hit by that cop at the accident scene.
This was a semi-trailer truck knocking him down—and then beating the ever-living shit out of him, fists making contact with his face, his upper body, his gut. Pain stalled his brain, but instinct from a lifetime of fighting brought his arms up over his head. Trying to curl over on his side, he did his best to protect his internal organs—
The first stab penetrated his right shoulder. The second was too close to his carotid for comfort.
The insane bastard had a crystal knife.
And Jim was not going to make it through this.
“What the fuck are you doing?” he yelled.
“You killed him!” the Englishman spat. “You fucker! You selfish motherfuck—”
Jim tried to capture that thrashing wrist, but there was blood flowing now, splashing all over the place, making any grip he could get slip free. The angel was completely out of control, the force of the stabbing increasing with every downward strike as opposed to easing off as energy ebbed.
In the midst of the flapping of his clothes, and the flashing of that clear blade, and the grunting hatred of his killer, he heard something else…
Barking?
Just as Jim was about to lose consciousness, he turned his head. There, no more than four feet away, Dog was going apeshit.
Unfortunately, Colin didn’t appear to hear any of it.
Which was how Jim finally saw the face of God.
Chapter
Thirty-seven
This time, Cait put her clothes away properly. Washed off her makeup and moisturized. Brushed and flossed and clipped her fingernails.
She was tired, but wired, as she and Teresa had called it in college.
Eventually, there was only so much pre-bed primping a girl could do before it was time to get under the sheets and commence the great ceiling stare-off.
