Covet fa-1

by J. R. Ward

  “I can see their shadow.” Eddie stepped to the side, glanced at Jim, and nodded downward.

  Jim wondered what the big deal was, because when he looked at the floor all he could see…was…

  He rubbed his eyes to make sure he was getting it right—but yeah, he was. At the base of the stairs where the fresher square of carpet was, he picked up on an odd disturbance, a visual echo of what had been two people intertwined in a heap. The woman had had frizzy, faded hair and a yellow housecoat. The man had been in green overalls, like the kind an electrician or a plumber would wear. The bloodstains beneath their heads covered yards of the carpet.

  Jim cleared his throat. “Yeah, I see it, too.”

  Marie-Terese appeared at the top of the stairs. “Where do you want us?”

  “I did it in my bedroom,” Vin said.

  Eddie left some of his load in the front hall and started for the second floor. “Then that's where we're going.”

  With all the bags he was holding, Jim had to turn sideways to fit as he went up, and Vin was cool enough to take some of the load.

  “What's all this stuff?” the guy asked.

  “Lotta frickin' salt.”

  As the four of them crammed into a room that was decorated in faded navy blue wallpaper and seventies schoolboy furniture, Eddie reached down and pulled up the braided rug in the center. “You did it here?”

  Self-evident, given the faded circle that was left on the floorboards. “Do we need to clean that first?” Jim asked.

  “Clean what?” Vin knelt down and ran his hands around the fake wood flooring. “There's nothing here.”

  “It's right—”

  Eddie caught Jim's arm and shook his head, then started opening bags. He handed both Vin and Marie-Terese a container of Morton salt. “You guys are going to pour a line around the perimeter of the upstairs. It needs to be an unbroken barrier, except for that window.” He nodded over to the right. “Leave that clear. If there is furniture in the way, it's okay—just go around it and then back against the wall. There's more in these bags if you need it.”

  When he seemed satisfied by how they were handling things, he took out a pair of stogies from inside his jacket and gave one of them along with some salt to Jim. “You and I are going to do the same and a little more downstairs.”

  “Roger that.”

  When they were back on the first floor, Eddie took out a black Bic lighter and fired his Cuban or whatever it was up. As he exhaled something that smelled like…clean ocean air, he offered the flame and Jim bent at the waist and lit his own. One inhale and he was in Heaven. The tobacco tasted amazing, like nothing he'd ever had in his mouth before, and if this was going to be part of his ongoing duties, he was so on board.

  Man, he'd liked smoking. And evidently all that cancer concern was off his list now.

  Eddie pocketed his lighter and popped open his salt. “We're going to go from room to room and exhale while we make a barrier down here. We're purifying the environment and creating an obstacle for her. There's more Morton's in that bag.”

  Jim glanced down at his umbrella girl. “Is this really going to keep Devina out?”

  “It'll make it harder for her to get in. Adrian's going to keep her busy for as long as he can, but even with his considerable talents, she's going to know something is up.”

  As Jim cracked the seal on his salt, he realized he liked the way he felt. For better or for worse— well, mostly worse—he was built to fight, and not just because he was a heavyweight motherfucker. Conflict was in his blood and his brain and his beating heart.

  He'd missed being on missions. Angling the Morton container downward, he happily smoked away as a thin white river poured out of the silver spout and onto the shitty carpet. Eddie was handling the back of the house, going down the hall and into the kitchen, so Jim headed for the living room. It was fast work, following along the baseboard while pushing dusty curtains out of the way, and it was satisfying: He felt as if he were pissing on his own territory, staking a claim.

  Man, he almost hoped that bitch walked through that door just so he could kick her ass.

  Talk about a sea change. In the past, he'd religiously drawn a line between men and women. He wouldn't hesitate to kill a man. Same with maiming, trampling, or cold-cocking one. Women, however, were totally different. A female could come at him with a knife drawn and he would disarm her. Period. Disabling would happen only if he absolutely had to, and in the least painful and permanent way.

  But Devina wasn't a woman to him anymore. Hell, she wasn't a woman, period.

  The salt whispered as he made his wobbly little line, and although it might have been hard to put a lot of confidence in something that was used to spice up McDonald's french fries, Eddie didn't strike him as a fool. Not by a long shot.

  And the cigar rocked. Totally.

  By the time they were finished, the downstairs of the house smelled like Florida and needed a DustBuster, and as they headed to the second floor, Eddie drew a white line across each of the steps until the stairs looked like a landing pad.

  Vin and Marie-Terese had been busy, and after Eddie inspected their efforts, he told them to take a load off on the little bed and asked Jim to join him in the bathroom at the top of the landing. Using the sink as a mixing bowl, the guy put in the hydrogen peroxide, the witch hazel and the juice of the lemons along with the white vinegar, and stirred with his own hands, weaving his fingers through the solutionJust as the pungent smell wafted up and drilled into Jim's nostrils, Eddie started speaking softly as he continued to make circles in the sink. The words were barely more than breath, and in a language Jim didn't understand, but the phrase was repeated over and over again.

  Abruptly, the scent rising up changed. No longer nasty in the nose, it became springtime-meadow fresh.

  Eddie took his hands out and wiped them on his jeans, then reached into his coat and produced two crystal…

  “Are those guns?” Jim asked.

  “Sure are.” The guy popped the stopper on one and submerged the thing, bubbles floating up to the surface until the belly was full. He handed it to Jim. “Put this in your holster. As opposed to your auto-loader, this shit will actually work against her.”

  As Eddie filled up his own, Jim turned the wet crystal over in his hands. The weapon was a goddamn piece of art, carved from clear quartz, he was guessing, and engineered with precision. Palming it, he took aim at the bathroom wall and pulled the trigger. A fine, strong line of the solution licked out exactly where he'd wanted it to go.

  “Nice,” he murmured, ditching his SIG.

  “I'll show you how to make them.” Eddie sealed up his gun's belly and holstered it at the small of his back. “The fact that you can carve wood's going to help.”

  When they went back to the others, Vin was pacing around and Marie-Terese was sitting on the bed. Eddie ditched his coat, and rifled around in the Hannaford bags that were now mostly empty.

  Taking out the fresh sage, he popped open its plastic container and gave the bundle of leaves to Marie-Terese. “You hold on to this and stay out of the way. No matter what you see or what happens, you do not drop this and you keep this against both of your palms. It's going to offer you some protection.”

  “What do I do?” Vin demanded.

  Eddie glanced over his shoulder. “Take off your clothes.”

  Chapter 38

  Last time Vin got naked for a crowd the context had been way different.

  As he tossed his shirt and pants and boxers onto the dresser, he made sure his gun was front and center on the pile, and when he turned around, he was ready to get whatever this was over with. Funny, he'd been operated on only once in his life, back about a decade ago. He'd had to get his knee rebuilt after years of playing basketball and tennis and running on the damn thing—and he was exactly the same way now as he had been then: Ready to get back to normal. Hoping that the outcome after the pain faded was the right one.

  He glanced over at Marie-Terese
. She was sitting absolutely still on the bed, holding the sprigs of fresh sage between her hands so that the fluffy leaves peeked out by her thumbs and the little stems hung free on the far side. As her eyes met his, he had to go over and give her a quick kiss on the mouth. She was scared but she was strong—and however much he wished she weren't a part of this, he agreed with Adrian: No chances with her. There could be no chances with her, ever, so they had to assume Devina had taken that earring.

  Eddie took out a compass and four white candles, and after doing some Boy Scouting with his gadget, he and Jim did a north, south, east, and west, marking each of the points on the bare floor with the waxers. Then it was more salt running in a circle around the setup. As Vin watched them, he had to admit the ring-around they did was tidier than the one he'd pulled off over twenty years before, but he'd had to hurry back then. There had been no telling how long his parents would remain passed out.

  “As I said, what you did was a possession ritual.” Eddie went around and lit each of the four wicks. “You took the three elements of yourself as a man—hair, blood, and…you know—and offered them to her. She accepted the gifts and took up res in your spiritual skin, so to speak. We're going to clean her out of you.”

  “Yeah, listen,” Vin cut in. “You sure we can't take care of Marie-Terese first, then worry about me?”

  “No. You're the focal point. You called Devina to you. Besides, Marie-Terese has an easier tie to break, assuming that earring is in Devina's possession.” The guy disappeared into the hall bath and returned with dripping hands that were held up like a surgeon's. “Jim, go into my coat and take out the leather roll that's in the right pocket.”

  Jim fished around and pulled free a ten-inch-long, two-inch-wide bundle that was secured with a white satin ribbon.

  “Open it.”

  Jim's hands were quick to pull the bow free and then he unrolled the leather, revealing a dagger. Made of glass.

  “Don't touch the knife,” Eddie said.

  “What the hell are you going to do with that?” Vin demanded.

  “We're going to open you up.” The man pointed to the circle of burning candles. “This is spiritual surgery, and before you ask, yup. Gonna hurt like a bitch. But when we're through, you're not going to be scarred or anything. Now lie down, head here at the north.”

  Vin looked at the men's faces as the pair of them stared over at him. Grim. Serious. Especially Eddie.

  “I've never seen a knife like that before,” Vin murmured as he looked at the thing.

  “It's crystal,” Eddie said, as if he knew Vin needed a second before he turned himself over to the ritual. “And yeah, take a deep breath, but we do need to get started.” He glanced at his buddy. “Jim? You stay next to Marie-Terese. Eventually you'll be doing these, but right now you're just on the watch team, and if the shit gets critical, you're in charge of her.”

  “Do you read minds?” Vin asked the guy.

  “Sometimes. Now can we get down to business? I don't know how long Adrian's going to be able to hold her.”

  Vin stared into Marie-Terese's eyes and hoped she read all that he wished he could speak. When she nodded as if she understood perfectly, he stepped over the salt circle and stretched out in the centeft Eddie had gauged the size perfectly: The soles of Vin's feet just touched the far edge when his head was right at the northern candle.

  “Close your eyes, Vin.”

  Vin took one last look at Marie-Terese and then he lowered his lids and tried to relax his body. The floor was hard against his shoulder blades, his ass, and his heels; and his heart was going at a clip in his rib cage. The real shitter was not being able to see, however—not only did he feel isolated, but the sound of everything got cranked up too high. From his own breathing to the footfalls of Eddie walking around him to the whispering of strange words over his naked body, it was all in nerve-racking HD.

  And it didn't take long for him to lose his patience. Here he was, laid out like some kind of meal to be consumed, in front of Marie-Terese, who was no doubt— A subtle vibration came up through the floor.

  Vin felt the tuning-fork reverberation first in his palms and feet and then it continued inward, the concentric circles drawing toward the center of him. As he absorbed the rhythmic waves, a subtle breeze tickled across the hair on his arms and his thighs and his chest, and he wondered whether someone had opened a window.

  No…things had begun to turn.

  Whether he started to spin or the room did, he wasn't sure, but abruptly the waves and the breeze coalesced and became indistinguishable as they swirled around him…or he swirled around. Like water rushing through a drain, speed gathered and his stomach revolted, nausea making that sandwich he'd eaten with Marie-Terese go green and spoiled in his gut.

  Just before he threw up, the merry-go-round stopped and he went weightless. No longer spinning, he was suspended in warm air, and thank fuck for it. Inhaling deep, he felt his belly ease up and the tension in his arms and legs release, his muscles going lax.

  And then his sight returned. Good God, even though his lids were down, he could see white light: The source was somewhere beneath him, piercing up through the floor he was supposedly on, his body carving out a pattern in the illumination.

  Eddie's face appeared above his own.

  The guy's mouth moved as if he were talking, and Vin didn't hear the words that were spoken so much as know them in his mind:

  Take a deep breath and stay very still.

  Vin tried to nod, but when Eddie shook his head, he just thought the word yes at the guy.

  The crystal knife rose above Vin's chest, the weapon held steady in Eddie's big hands. As the white light hit it, a brilliant rainbow of color sparkled, everything from pinks and baby blues and pale yellows to bloodred and navy blue and deep amethyst exploding from its length.

  Indecipherable words appeared in Vin's head as Eddie spoke faster and faster.

  Bracing himself, Vin focused on the razor-sharp blade point.

  It was going into his heart. He just knew it.

  When the inevitable descent came, it was faster than a blink and slower than a century—and the impact was worse than he'd prepared for. The instant the dagger sank into Vin's flesh, he felt as if every nerve in his body transmitted the pain.

  Then Eddie sliced him right open.

  Vin screamed into the maelstrom as his body cleaved open at his breastbone, his spine straining as he contorted upward. He was vaguely aware of Eddie speaking words, and then the man's glowing hand reached inside the locus of the agony, making it so much worse.

  Probing. Fisting. A great pulling.

  Whatever Eddie was grabbing and yanking was holding on tight, and abruptly Vin couldn't breathe for the great pressure on his ribs and lungs. Gasping, he struggled to draw air down in the midst of it all.

  He started to scream again. Which made no sense because he had no breath.

  As the battle for extraction raged, Vin fought to hold on not for himself, but for Marie-Terese. He would not die in front of her. He would not die tonight in front of her. He would not—

  But Eddie didn't let up and the thing didn't loosen and Vin started to fail. His heart went from pounding to tripping to failing to pump, and with the fibrillation came a numbing cold that overtook him. He tried to fight it, tried to will his body back into functioning, but there was no reserve left to call upon. Even as his mind and soul wanted to stay, his flesh was done.

  Except then the evil loosened.

  At first, there was just the slightest of slips, as if only one of the tendrils that clung to him snapped free. But then another broke, and another, and more in a bunch. And—

  With a screeching tear, like metal was being torn apart, a blackness was lifted from him, taken out of him, torn free…and his first thought was that he felt far too light in his body in its absence. His second was that he was still dying—

  Vin was saved by the white light.

  All at once, as if it knew how little ti
me he had left, he was resuscitated, the illumination's blanketing warmth easing the pain, and then wiping it clean as if the torture had never existed. He soared free, light and transparent, indistinguishable from what surrounded him.

  He wept in ecstatic relief and gratitude.

  It was the first time in thirty-three years that he'd been alone in his own skin.

  * * *

  Jim's eyes had divided loyalties.

  Every time a car rolled slowly down the street, he stared out the window. Any noise around the house? Creak of a tree? Breeze rattling the window? It was the same. He was constantly searching corners, waiting for Devina to come roaring in.

  And yet the center of the room consumed him.

  He'd never seen anything like it. From the moment the floor dropped free from Vin and that blast of white light shot up from nowhere, to the electric second when Eddie put the knife to use and then started pulling, it was all so incredible.

  God, that knife.

  It was the most beautiful thing Jim had ever seen: When the light had hit it, a child's spectrum of vivid colors had sprung forth, the hues so bright and clear, it was as if his eyes were young again and seeing them for the first time.

  But the struggle…he'd been certain Vin was going to die. In the fulcrum of the glow, Eddie had stabbed the man and reached inside his chest and started yanking like he was trying to drag a car out of a swamp. And in response, Vin had screamed from a vast distance, the agony tearing out of his throat as his body had strained.

  At that moment, Marie-Terese had lunged forward, but Jim had caught her, instinct telling him she couldn't get in the way of what was going on, no matter how dire things appeared. Interrupting was not in the playbook: This was surgery for the soul and the cancer had to come out. Even if the man died in the middle of it, the extraction attempt was the right course of action.

  Jim held her as loosely as he could, and she ended up against him, nails deep in his forearm as she watched, as helpless as he was to affect the outcome.

  It was all about Eddie and Vin and whatever fate was going to roll out.