Immortal (16 page)

When the male sat down, he greeted only Tarquin, the Irish wolfhound, as all others went still and silent.

In the tense quiet that followed, Nigel noticed that that dark hair was wet from a recent washing and that Colin smelled of sandalwood and spices.

“Now that we are all in attendance,” Nigel said hoarsely, “I wish to formally apologize for my actions.”

Or more accurately:
I am so sorry, Colin. And I would have preferred to do this in private.

“In an effort to more fully engage the savior, I—”

Colin cut in, “I think we can all agree that given the dire state of the war, the only thing that matters is where one goes from here.”

Read:
I am not interested in any kind of explanation or apology, public or private.

Nigel took a moment to recover from a blow to his gut. “Yes. Of course.” He cleared his throat as Byron and Bertie became quite engaged in counting the currants in their scones. “I believe the question is whether or not to tell the savior of his upcoming role in the war.”

“You're assuming he wins this round,” Colin muttered.

“He will not stand for losing.”

“This is an angel who gave a flag away, may I remind you.”

“He is changed.”

“Because he went to Purgatory and back?” Colin's eyes were level as they finally looked across the tea sandwiches on their stand. “It must be a transformative place, then. Unfortunately, too little, too late and all of that.”

“'Tis not the place, but the nature of mistakes which changes a person's course. The mourning of foolish actions can be a powerful catalyst.”

“There are many things that can be catalysts.”

Read:
Such as being abandoned and betrayed by one whom you love.

“Tea?” Bertie asked, as if he wanted to break up the subtextual bickering.

“No, thank you.” Colin sat back and stared at the Manse of Souls. “Sustenance is the last thing of interest to me now.”

Byron put his cup down in its saucer as if he, too, had lost his appetite—but his eyes gleamed behind his rose-colored glasses. “I am encouraged by your optimism, Nigel. I am of hope that we shall as yet prevail—and although I have always respected your commitment to the rules of this war, I can see why Jim's knowing that he is to be the last soul which is battled for could be beneficial.”

“Assuming we do not lose this round,” Colin interjected. “As we have lost three others.”

“Jim will not be bested.” Nigel took a sip from the rim of his porcelain cup. The tea tasted like dishwater, even though it had been conjured in the same manner it had been forever. “Not with who is in play.”

“You think that will make a difference?” Colin smiled coldly. “Love is not quite so bankable. At least in my experience.”

With that, the archangel got to his feet. “If you all will excuse me, I'm going to do a check of the castle periphery.”

“Would you care for company?” Bertie asked.

“No. Thank you.”

As Colin stalked off, Bertie and Byron once again busied themselves with ocular endeavors that did not include Nigel.

“Tarquin,” Nigel murmured. “Do follow after him, will you?”

The Irish wolfhound let out a chuff and then padded off in Colin's wake, keeping his distance and being as subtle as an animal who weighed ten stone and looked like a floor mop could be.

“I believe I shall retire for some rest,” Nigel said as he put his napkin upon his empty plate. “Do excuse me, will you.”

He hated getting emotional under any circumstances. Showing sadness or pain in front of others?

In the words of the savior, No fucking way.

“Welcome to Home Depot! What are we looking for today?”

As Jim eyed the source of the noise, he was thinking fondly of knives. Brass knuckles. A tire iron. But come on, the greeter was a seventy-year-old man with more hair in his white beard than on his head—like the poor soul deserved that kind of treatment for no reason at all? Hell, he was like an almost Santa Claus who just needed a course of Rogaine to get there. And a red velvet suit instead of that orange apron. Bib. Whatever it was.

“Plywood,” Ad said.

“Oh, that's great!” Yeah, he probably said that in response to every conceivable reply: garden hoses, grills, lightbulbs, flooring. “You want to go allllllllllllllll—”

He drew out the Ls as he pivoted and pointed past the lineup of twenty-foot-high scaffold'd displays with their packed-in SKU'd merch.

“—llllllllll the way to the back. Ask for Billy. Have you been here before? Because we offer a special checkout for oversize orders.”

“Thanks,” Ad said as he began to walk off.

“And thank you for your service, young man.”

The angel paused. “I'm sorry?”

“Weren't you wounded in the war?”

“Ah, yeah. Guess you could say that.”

As Ad gave Almost Santa a nod and limped off, Sissy followed tight on the angel's heels, and Jim lagged behind.

Goddamn, it had been a while since he'd walked through a store like this. Or . . . more accurately, it just seemed like it had been forever.

The shit made him remember back to how out of touch he'd been when he'd finally maneuvered himself free of XOps: He'd known only that he was done with the whole killing-for-the-government thing; he hadn't thought much about being a civilian, or what a simple joy it was to get in your four-year-old car and leave your two-thousand-square-foot ranch and drive three-point-three miles to your local Home Depot or Lowe's and buy a cocktail of lawn fertilizer, a new hammer, and weatherstripping for your back door.

Unfortunately, he hadn't gotten the chance to enjoy much of that.

Not with this whole savior thing coming along and knocking him on his ass.

As his eyes swung around the store's cavernous interior, he intended to check out the lighting kiosk in the middle of the place, with its hanging chandeliers and stand-up units and fake-sunshine glow.

Instead, his peepers locked on Sissy and suffered from a serious case of nope-not-leaving.

In the words of their greeter guy, Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo figure.

Jesus Christ, what a mess. The only thing he'd done right was help her through her first time. Everything else had been a cluster fuck, especially the way it had ended between them with him leaving on some lame-ass statement about having to take a
shower. Or something. Fuck, he couldn't even recall what he'd said to her.

The problem was, when they'd been having the sex, he'd been so fucking wound up that all he'd wanted to do was pound into her hard—his body had been a thin inch from totally out of control. Afraid of hurting her, he'd pulled out and come all over the sheets, his hips pistoning into the mattress—which had been better than her. Or so he'd thought.

After that, it had been a case of cue the awkward silence, which had only gotten worse as he'd rolled away from her and tried to get his shit together: Instead of calming things down, the orgasm had only made him hungrier. So much so, he'd been worried about trying to act on it. Which was not what you did when you'd just taken someone's—

“Do we have nails and a hammer?” Sissy asked.

Ad shook his head. “You wanna pick them up while we get the lumber?”

“Yup. Perfect.” As if she'd been looking for an excuse to break off.

And go her own way she did, peeling away and dematerializing into the stacks. Naturally, he couldn't let her head off alone—

Ad grabbed onto his arm. “Let her go. We're all under the same roof, and maybe the ride home will be less of a nightmare if you give her a little space.”

“The trip over here wasn't that bad.”

“Compared to open-heart surgery, sure.”

As Ad dragged him along, they passed by more of the helpful types with the orange aprons, and he wondered if he could ask one of them what to do. Man, if only women were like houses, the kind of thing you could fix with some good manual labor and a toolbox.

“What the fuck happened between you two?” Ad paused and
checked out an end cap of Levolors. “And do me a favor and don't say ‘nothing.' We could all be wiped off the face of the planet in another day and a half. We don't have a lot of time, but more to the point, this could all be nothing but bullshit very, very soon, so what do you have to lose?”

“No offense, but do you really think you have anything to add to a discussion about women?”

Ad frowned and started walking again. “Good point.”

They were turning the corner into big-boy land with the wood when Jim blurted, “She's not a virgin anymore.”

Ad coughed into his hand. “Oh. Yeah. Ah, am I supposed to say congratulations?”

“Obviously not. I didn't know what to say afterward. I just . . . up and left. Well, not exactly.” Again, he'd managed to choke out something to her about needing a shower. Which in retrospect had suggested he couldn't wait to get clean or something. “I dunno, I was freaking out.”

“Because it was a disappointment?”

“No . . . because it was that good. And my brain wasn't working right, so I blew it. By the time I'd gotten my head together, she'd gone downstairs and everything was in the crapper.”

And there was another truth in all of it: He'd been worried he was heading back into distraction land—and they all knew how well that had worked for them. Nigel. Purgatory. Busted-up parlor.

Losing.

Guess he'd needed a second to figure out whether or not he was lying to himself when he thought he could do both: fight and be with her. Not that he'd made much of a conscious choice when he'd gone down to her bedroom. That little stroll had been more like a ricochet function, him bouncing off the dire straits of Purgatory into the one thing that he knew would connect him to freedom.

Plus he'd just plain wanted her.

And now things were fucked.

The sad thing? Put him in the wilderness and he could survive for weeks on his own. He could build bombs and dismantle them. He was able to put a bullet in a thimble at three hundred yards—or into a human head.

But he had never suffered from a case of brain jam like he'd had right after that session with Sissy. And meanwhile she was pissed off and hurt—and he wasn't sure what to do to make things better.

Maybe a little breather was good.

As he'd told himself before, he should focus on the war—and worry about having a love life of some kind after they'd crossed the finish line.

Shit.

Sissy found the hammer section and was dumbfounded. To her, a hammer was what her dad had had in his old Sears toolbox—something with a worn wooden handle and a head that was corroded. The stuff for sale here was some kind of glamorous cousin, all about the ultra-deluxe, the titanium, the sure-grip, and the shiny.

It was like a jewelry store for dudes.

She was about to grab one when she realized she'd forgotten that she was invisi—a fact that was made apparent as some woman who looked as lost as she herself felt plowed through her with an orange plastic shopping cart full of venetian blinds.

The sensation it caused was something like a fever breaking through her body, hot and cold vibrations rocking her. And the woman seemed to sense something, too—she yanked her cart to a stop and looked around.

Clearly, Ad and Jim had thought to make themselves apparent or the greeter wouldn't have talked to them.

“Damn it,” Sissy whispered.

Then again, did she really want to run the risk of meeting up with someone she knew? Not that any of her friends from college or high school were going to be hanging in a place like this at eleven in the morning on a weekday—but you never knew about friends of her parents'.

And God knew she had enough to worry about already.

She had no frickin' idea what the hell had gone wrong with Jim. And whereas she'd started out hurt and confused, now she'd evolved to a fuck-you phase of things.

That anger of hers to the rescue, she guessed.

The only thing that kept her from going off on him was the reality that they weren't in a relationship. He didn't owe her anything more than what they'd exchanged in her bed. And at least that part of it had gone well. She couldn't imagine anybody treating her any better than he had. But then things had gotten twisted—and stayed that way.

The situation made her think back to all the phone calls and summit talks she and her friends had had as people in school had hooked up, started to date, and then broken up. She'd always been on the periphery of the drama, standing off to the side wondering what the problem with all these otherwise normal types was.

And then this morning had happened.

Yet another ahh-right moment that she would rather not have added to her repertoire. And, boy, it was hard not to think of what that demon and Jim had gotten up to during their night of fun and games.

Which just made her even angrier—

From out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of a man
standing by a display of screwdrivers. He was tall, dark haired, intense-looking . . . and he had a halo. Just like she and Jim did.

“Sissy?”

At the sound of Ad's voice, she looked over her shoulder, then pointed at the guy. “Hey, it's one of us.”

Ad's frown tied his brows in a knot. “Yeah. I know him. Um . . . you get what we need?”

“Aren't you going to go talk to him?”

“No.” He leaned in and snagged two hammers randomly. “Jim's getting the plywood. Come on—we need some nails and a saw.”

Sissy glanced back at the guy, who didn't seem to notice her or Adrian. “How do you know him?”

“It's not important. Come on.”

“Who is he?”

“Just a guy.”

Giving up, she followed Adrian over an aisle and waited as he scored some boxes of nails. And then it was across into saw land.

Except before Ad made his choice from the two thousand available options, he stopped and stared at her. “How did you know him?”

She pointed to her own head. “He has a halo. Like me and Jim.”

Those eyes of his shifted upward. “No offense, but I don't see anything there.”

“Little gold circle. Like a floating string of light tied to itself. It's right here.”

Ad shook his head. “I got nothing, but whatever. Let's get back and start fixing that room.”

By the time they got over to the big-ass-pieces-of-wood section of the store, Jim was pushing a large rolling platform over to a bulk-items checkout—and he must have sensed her presence, because he glanced over his shoulder.

For a split second, she couldn't believe they'd actually had sex. That experience between the sheets seemed as distant as a dream, some kind of hazy hypothetical that maybe she'd just made up.

The delicious soreness between her thighs told her differently, however. So did her anger.

As there was no reason to wait next to Jim, she went over and stood by the automatic doors. People were milling all around, each with things in carts or in their arms, all of them with concentration on their faces like they had mental lists and busy enough lives so that having to come back for something they forgot was going to be a pain in the butt.

Not one of them had any idea what had happened yesterday in that parlor—or that they were being watched by someone who was not like them.

Hard to know whether their ignorance was a good thing or not. Would they be leading their lives differently if they were aware of what was really going on?

Probably. And it made her think of a game she and her sister had played: if you had twenty-four hours left to live, what would you do? She remembered her answers having a lot to do with chocolate. Then again, she'd been twelve the last time she'd—

God, she missed her parents. Her sister. Her friends.

Her life.

For no particular reason, she glanced out into the parking lot—and that was when she saw the car that didn't belong: A big, black Mercedes-Benz was cruising the store at a trolling speed, its sleek lines gleaming in the spring sunlight.

The windows were blacked out so she couldn't see who was driving, but she knew.

She
knew
.

As she stepped out of the store, the sedan eased to a stop in front of her and the passenger-side window went down. Sure
enough, the demon was behind the wheel, and the instant Sissy locked eyes with her, the happy fact that they had both been with Jim crashed onto her head.

He had serviced them both. No doubt done the same things to Devina that he'd done to her just over an hour ago.