Immortal (17 page)

The kissing. The touching. The licking.

The sex.

Instantly, she was back in that parlor, holding Jim as he returned from the immortal dead, so relieved and a little superior that however much the demon seemed to want his attention, he had eyes only for her. But now? After he'd taken her virginity?

He was as cold to her as he'd been to the demon.

“That fucking bastard,” Sissy hissed.

The demon leaned across the empty passenger seat. In a grim voice, she said, “Get in.”

“That'll be four hundred ninety-eight dollars and seventy-six cents.”

Jim went for his wallet, shoving his hand into his back pocket. Taking out one of his credit cards, he was glad it had been under a month since he'd officially “died.” All his accounts were still open.

Come to think of it, he probably needed to liquidate his money before his death became a reality to the banks. Then again, who exactly was going to notify them that he'd died? Long as the monthlies were paid, he could go on forever.

Not that he had forever.

“We gotta find that fucking soul,” he said as he swiped the MasterCard down the reader.

“What'd you say?”

He glanced up at the clerk. “Nothing. And no, I don't have one of those savings-card things.”

“Well, if you'd like to sign up, you'd save—”

“No. Thanks.”

He glanced over at Sissy and lost all train of thought as he saw her: The light was streaming into the open bay, catching the blond streaks in her hair and the glow in her skin. Her body was mostly hidden underneath the baggy sweatshirt, but he knew firsthand exactly how perfect she was built.

As his cock got to throbbing, he glared at his hips. Nope, he told the damn thing. Not the time, not the place, and definitely not with how things were between them.

Closing his eyes for a second, he intended to give himself a pull-it-together-man-whore pep talk—except all he ended up with were snapshots of her naked and spread, her body arching as he worked her out at her breasts.

Not what he needed. Not what was helpful.

Trouble was, his instincts were still to get her horizontal and go NIN on her. Except how was that going to work for them? They weren't speaking, for one thing—for another, she wasn't going to be ready for what he wanted now. Or probably ever.

She wasn't the “fuck you like an animal” type.

“Guess who I just ran into.”

Jim glanced over at his wingman. “Who.”

“Matthias.”

“No . . . shit.”

“Yeah. Actually, Sissy pointed him out.” Adrian took some initiative and picked up the bag with the hammers and nails from the holders. “Mind if we hit Starbucks on the way home?”

“How the
hell
could she know him?” He frowned and looked to the entrance. “Wait, where is she—”

“Here's your receipt, sir.”

She'd been standing by the exit, right by the fucking exit—

“Sir? Your receipt?”

“Where the hell is—”

Ad stepped in front of him. “She's probably just wandering around. Where the fuck would she go? You stay here. I'll find her.”

When Jim went to walk off, Ad locked a grip on his arm and yanked him back. “Stay. Here. I'll go get her.”

The guy was probably right. Jim was liable to bark at her for
disappearing even though she'd no doubt only gone for a stroll down the gardening aisle or something.

Pushing the rolling platform with the plywood off to the side, he waited by the door and patted his pockets for his cigarettes. Damn it, he'd left them back home—but it wasn't like he could have lit up here anyway.

Where was she?

Always a firm believer in not panicking until it was time to, he threw a saddle on his adrenal gland and reined that shit in. Unfortunately, as Adrian came limping back with a frown on his puss and absolutely, positively no Sissy with him, Jim knew that something had gone bad.

“I can't find her,” the other angel said. “Maybe she's out at the Explorer.”

Jim exhaled in relief and felt like an amateur. Of course she'd go hang there. Take a load off. Blah, blah, blah.

Except when they went out to the SUV, she wasn't anywhere near the thing. Or walking in the parking lot.

Leaving Ad with the stuff, Jim jogged back into the store and made quick work of the twelve million square acres of shelf space. Nothing. No Sissy.

As he ran full tilt from the store and back to Adrian, one last hope that she might have turned up got blown out of the water as he found Ad alone.

“Jesus Christ,” Jim demanded, “where is she?”

“He fucked you, didn't he.”

As Sissy sat beside the demon in the Mercedes, she was too pissed off to be scared. Too pissed off even to speak.

“Well.” Devina glared across the interior of the car. “Didn't he.”

She wasn't about to share details with the enemy. But there was a serious satisfaction in slapping the bitch with, “Yes, he did.”

There was a long stretch of silence as the demon came to a full stop at a red light and then accelerated in a civilized way when the thing turned green.

Guess she was a law abider in some senses.

Sissy passed the time checking out the interior of the car. She'd never been in a Mercedes before, much less one of the super-fancy models: Everything was sleek lines and high-tech, leather and polished wood—the only thing out of place being the lack of a hood ornament out in front.

Hard to imagine anyone stealing something from the root of all evil and getting away with it.

“How'd he do you?” the demon gritted out. “From behind? He likes me from behind.”

Oh, there was a picture. “Not going there. But you know it's true, don't you.”

There must have been some way that Devina had known she'd been a virgin in the first place—only logical to assume the demon would be aware when she was no longer one.

“Does he pull your hair?” Devina demanded. “Bite your nipples? He's rough. Was he rough with you?”

No, she thought. He was anything but rough.

Devina looked over again. “We broke the door on the shower at the hotel. The night before last.”

Maybe this wasn't a good idea, Sissy thought. 'Cause these little sound bites were making her feel like punching something.

“He didn't sleep when he was with me. Did he sleep when he was with you?”

“Yes,” Sissy answered. And then wished she'd kept her mouth shut.

“He was probably tired out from being with me.”

“Or the trip to Purgatory.” Sissy glanced over at the demon, measuring the stunning beauty that was just an illusion. “Is there a purpose to all this?”

“Yes, yes, there is. I want you to know that he hurt me really badly. Back in that parlor.” The demon met Sissy's eyes. “And he's going to do the same to you. You think I'm evil? You think Hell was bad? That is nothing compared to what that man is going to do to you. You're in love with him, I can tell. So am I. And he has treated me with a total lack of respect.”

“Maybe he's just not that into you.”

“It's his nature, little girl. You don't understand how he got this job. Don't be fooled by anything he says or does—he is half-evil.”

“I can't trust a thing you say, you realize.”

“Trust me, don't trust me, I don't give a fuck—your opinion about what I'm telling you doesn't change the truth. Back in the beginning, Nigel and I had to both agree on the savior who would be influencing the souls. Jim is fifty-fifty, which is why we each gave our consent.” Devina put her directional signal on and made a smooth left turn. “I should have known he'd do this to me. And you might as well know what he's really like.”

“No offense, but he refers to you as the enemy.”

“Not when he's with me, he doesn't.”

Sissy frowned and looked out the front windshield. The spring day was a beacon of summer soon to come, and people in other cars had their windows down.

How she envied them.

The demon shook her head. “Like I said, I don't care whether or not you believe me—because sooner or later, Jim's going to fuck you over.”

“I'm not getting involved with him,” Sissy heard herself say.

“You two had sex. You're involved. Unless you expect me to
believe a girl who saves it until she's how old suddenly decides to just bang a guy? Personally, I find that prudish bullshit nauseating, but like he has his nature, you have yours.”

Well, then hers was changing. She couldn't remember ever having this kind of temper.

“Did he tell you what he did to the men who killed his mother?”

Sissy glanced over again, and found herself staring at the demon's perfect profile as dread nailed her in the chest.

“No. He didn't tell me about her.” Matter of fact, she hadn't heard him say one thing about his past. Then again, it wasn't like they'd been on any traditional dates—or had a break in the drama that had lasted long enough for some quiet, reflective conversation.

“He slaughtered them. Hacked them up into little pieces—while they were alive. And don't take my word for it. Do a search under his name.”

“Listen, this is none of my business—”

“Look him up.” The demon gave her a hard smile. “Iowa. Type his name into Google and it'll all come up. The killings were so violent they made the national news, but he wasn't prosecuted. He supposedly didn't live that long—except that was a lie. The body found in that car crash wasn't really his. The U.S. government covered it all up so they could have him and use him like the weapon he is.”

“I'm sorry, what the hell are you saying?”

“Jim Heron, the hero who ‘saved' you from me”—the demon had to take both hands off the steering wheel to do the air quotes—“made his living killing people for the country. You think I'm a sick bitch? Ask him how he got paid for over two decades. It wasn't gathering intel. It was putting bullets in people's heads. That tattoo on his back? He has it because he's proud of his work.”

The demon hit the brakes at a stop sign and looked over, her black eyes glittering. “The man who took your virginity is no angel. He's a murderer without a conscience. Which is precisely why he and I get along so well.”

Sissy opened her mouth to say something. To deny it. To . . .

Except instead of speaking, she just resumed staring out the window.

A little later, the Mercedes came to a halt in front of the old mansion, and all Sissy could do was look up at the window that was across the hall from her bedroom.

Picturing how they'd spent the night, she wanted to vomit.

“That's right,” the demon said in a voice that warped. “Know that I speak the truth. And don't be a fucking pussy. Do something about it.”

“Like what,” she whispered.

“Fight fire with fire.”

“I don't understand.”

“Your anger is the most powerful weapon against him. Use it. Teach him a lesson. Show him that what he's done to you and to me is a sin for which he must atone.”

“Isn't that stuff supposed to be left to God.”

“Yes, and God provides us our destinies. Yours is to fight back.”

“I can't trust you.”

“But you can trust yourself. You'll know what to do. When the time is right, you'll know exactly what to do. Now get the fuck out of my car.”

The demon didn't have to ask twice. Sissy popped the handle on the door and slid free of the seat.

The Mercedes took off before she'd shut things, leaving her alone with nothing but all those images of Jim doing things to that other woman's body.

That fucking bastard.

Jim took Angel Airlines to his destination, leaving Ad to drive the Explorer—but whether in flight or on the ground, where he went wasn't that far from Home Depot.

Sissy's parents' house fit in with the tidy neighborhood, the two-story set back on its lot, that pastel Easter flag still by the front door even though the holiday had long passed. No Subaru parked in the driveway, no lights on, but it was a sunny morning.

He walked right in.

And as soon as he was through the front door, he stopped and listened. No sounds of anyone moving, nobody talking on a phone, no TV on. He strode quickly around the first floor, then jogged up to the second. He popped his head into her old room. In her sister's. In her parents'. Went to a window and looked out at the shallow backyard.

Goddamn it.

On his way back to the stairs he stopped at her room again, checking to see if anything was gone or had changed. Having a photographic memory was a bonus.

Nothing was out of place that he could tell.

Downstairs, he stalled in the foyer, putting his hands on his hips and staring at the floor as his brain chewed over the alternatives.

A second later, he took out his phone and called Ad. When the guy answered, Jim muttered, “Not here. I'm rerouting to the cemetery.”

Hanging up, he put his palm forward and closed his eyes, envisioning the perimeter of the house marked by a notification spell—so that if she did end up here, he'd know it.

What he really should have done was put some kind of a tracer on her. Too bad Eddie wasn't around. That guy would have been able to tell him how to do it.

When he popped open his lids, a subtle blue glow shimmered on the walls, floors, and windows, like the place had been spray-painted. It was all he could do.

Just as he turned to leave, he caught sight of that armchair in the living room, the one he'd found Sissy's mother in, back before Sissy's body had been discovered in the quarry, back when there had still been some kind of hope for this family that the daughter they were all desperate to have back might still come home.

Before he ducked out, he leaned in and glanced over at the bookcase full of family photos. With a quick jab into his pocket, he snagged his phone and went over, putting the thing up and focusing the lens on his favorite picture of Sissy.

Click.

Then he was off, his wings carrying him over the residential neighborhood and toward the area of town where the Pine Grove Cemetery took up acres and acres of land. He remembered exactly where Sissy's grave was and soared above the treetops and the grave markers, cutting across the Chutes and Ladders lane system that the cars had to stick to.

She wasn't there, either.

Landing next to her granite gravestone, his heart tightened up at the sight of the plastic-wrapped bouquets and green potted
flowers that had been placed around where her earthly remains had been buried.

Where the
hell
was she?

Then again, maybe that was the answer. Looking down at his feet, he pictured Devina's Well of Souls and his empty stomach rolled.

He quickly texted an update to Adrian . . . and sent out a beacon to the enemy. If that fucking demon had screwed with his woman?

The last thing Devina was going to have to worry about was whether or not she won the war.

Pacing up and down on the grass, he waited . . . and waited. Just like the bitch to take her sweet time—

As his phone rang, he took it out and answered the damn thing. “Yeah?”

“She's here. At home.”

“What?”

Ad's voice stayed quiet, like maybe she was in the next room and he didn't want her to hear him. “Yup. Says she got bored and decided to head back.”

“Don't let her go anywhere.”

“Roger that. She's just going to help me with the plywood—”

Jim cut the other angel off and left Sissy's grave in the blink of an eye.

“No, I've got it.” Sissy gave a hard yank and pulled a section of plywood out of the back of the Explorer. “See? No problem.”

“Yeah, well, I'm not totally crippled.”

“And girls are strong, too.”

She and Ad took a break to glare at each other. And then they
both grabbed hold of a side of the sheet and walked over the grass, heading for those blown-out windows.

“It was a miracle you got all this in the back of the SUV,” she grunted.

“Yup,” he strained. “But a couple of bungee cords and that back hatch did just fine being mostly open.”

“Have you called the landlords?”

“Not yet.”

It was slow going, what with his limp and the fact that her hands kept slipping. Who knew boards weighed this much?

Over at the parlor, they put the plywood down and leaned it against the house. She was glad she wasn't the only one panting—boy, they still had five more left to unload, several of which had to go around the corner of the house on the far side.

“You really should have waited for us,” Ad muttered between deep breaths.

“Like I said, I'm sorry.”

“Jim's due back any minute.”

“Let's get the next sheet.”

Back at the Explorer, she reached and locked onto the wood. Giving it another yank, she—

“Shit!” Pulling back her hands, she looked down at her palm. The rough edge had cut into her skin, streaking across and leaving a bloody trail . . . that was silver, not red.

“Are you okay?”

Spinning around, she looked up into Jim's eyes—and promptly forgot what was wrong with her. He was standing on the lawn about three feet away, still in what he'd been wearing when they'd left. But he was totally and completely different.

Rising up behind both of his shoulders were an angel's trademark, the shimmering beauty of what she'd seen on Christmas
trees and Christmas cards and on TV suddenly very real. All she could do was blink.

Wings. Iridescent angel wings—

“Why did you leave without saying something?”

It took her a second to figure out he was talking to her. “Ah . . . I just did.”

“I'm gonna ask nice. Please . . . don't do that again. You scared the shit out of me.”

Overhead, a cloud drifted across the sun, cutting the glare and the warmth. But Jim remained resplendent, somehow creating his own illumination, like he was a kind of destination in and of himself. A place where she wanted to end up—

Like a neon sign that was suddenly plugged in, images of Jim making love to Devina flashed in her mind's eye, popping up and eclipsing the vision before her.

Reigniting her anger.

“Look, can we talk?” he said.

“I've got to take care of my hand.”

“I'll come with you.”

As she headed into the house, she saw him make a motion to Ad—like he wanted to be sure they had some privacy. Fine. Whatever.

She didn't have anything to hide. Then again, the same wasn't true for him.

Back in the kitchen, she started the water running and got out the dish soap—no reason to get fussy about cleaning things off. Hell, she wasn't even sure she had to bother, but old Neosporin habits died hard.

“You can't do that to me,” he said roughly.

“I'm fine,” she hissed as she put her palm under the faucet.

“Sissy—”

“You know what I did while you were gone?” She squeezed some Ivory soap out onto the cuts and hissed again. “I looked you up. On the Internet.”

She glanced behind herself to find that he was totally still. And his wings were gone now—guess they only appeared when he needed them to travel—and somehow that seemed right.

She refocused on rubbing her hands together until the soap frothed up. “Your computer is pretty fast—and that's a good thing. There's a lot on you. But it made for quick reading.”

As he went over and sat down at the kitchen table, she had the sense that his eyes never wavered from her—and it was obvious he was surprised.

“What made you decide to look me up,” he said.

“Just a whim.” She cut off the water and went for some paper towels to dry things off. “Is it true that they couldn't find all the body parts? Of those men who . . . killed your mother? I mean, I know you murdered them, right?”

“That was a long time ago.”

“Some things are never a long time ago.”

“So what do you want me to say.” When she didn't reply, he shrugged. “You brought this up for a reason.”

“What did you do afterward?”

“You read the articles.”

“They say you died. Clearly, that wasn't true. So what did you do? I can't believe the military took someone that young in—were you in foster care until you joined? Or were there other arrangements made?”

In the silence that followed, she realized that she was hoping he came clean and told her everything. Which was dumb. Like that was going to change anything?

His stare narrowed. “Where is all this coming from?”

“What do you mean?”

“You just all of a sudden, out of the blue, decide to look me up? Doesn't make sense.”

“Kind of like you shutting down after you had sex with me, huh. Doesn't make sense.”

He began patting pockets, and then cursed and got up. “Gimme a minute.”

When he came back into the kitchen, he had his cigarettes and his lighter—and he waited until he had a live one between his lips and had taken his first drag before he answered her.

“I'm really sorry about upstairs,” he said.

“Are you.”

“Yes.” He exhaled up to the ceiling. “I didn't know how to handle it.”

“Oh, really. I'm very sure that I was the only one who lost their virginity.”

“I wanted you so bad, so fucking bad—I was scared I was going to hurt you. That's why I pulled out and came into the goddamn mattress. And afterward, I had the worst case of the head-fucks—I know you're disappointed in me, and you have every right to be. I just . . . look I'm not good at this, okay? I don't know how to do . . .” He motioned back and forth between them with his cigarette. “. . . this. You want to know the real me? Well, you've got him right here—I'm tongue-tied and stupid, especially with you, and that is dangerous for you, for everyone. Oh, and yeah, I killed those three men back in Iowa. I came home from school to find my mother bleeding on our kitchen floor. They had done . . .” His voice cracked and he cleared his throat. “. . . bad shit to her. Just so we're clear? I'd do it all over again—and no, they didn't find all the body parts, because some of them were nothing more than mulch after I was done with those bastards.”

Sissy looked down at her hand, thinking about how much the wound hurt. Then she imagined what it would be like to
have things that were worse get done to her while she was conscious.

“I went into the military afterward. That's where I went, Sissy. I did unspeakable things for this country until I couldn't live with myself anymore and I got out. I was electrocuted at a construction site about three weeks ago—and that's how I ended up here. I got nothing to offer you but honesty—and that's it. This where I'm at.”

“I don't . . .” Now she was the one with the head-fuck, as he so aptly put it. “I don't know—”

She cut herself off before she could finish with “who to believe.” Instinct told her it was better to keep Devina out of it.

“You sure there wasn't a reason,” he murmured.

“For what.”

“Looking me up.”

“I had sex with a man for the first time and he leaves my bed without a word. I don't need you to hold me afterward and make me feel better, but I—”

“I want to do that.” He dragged a hand through his hair. “I am very sorry, Sissy. I handled that really fucking badly.”

It was so weird. As she listened to his voice and studied his open, calm affect, she felt like she was straddling a divide, teetering back and forth, shifting her weight from one side to the other. In Devina's car, she'd been so sure that Jim was the enemy. Now, listening to him, she wasn't so sure.

“I had to find out something about you,” she blurted.

“I can respect that.”

After a moment, her feet moved of their own volition, taking her over to the table. Then her arm extended and she pulled out the chair opposite him. She sat down slowly, her mind flip-flopping between the extremes.

Was he an angel? A devil?

It seemed foolish to believe the source of all evil about anything. But those killings . . .

“They made us get that tattoo.”

She looked up, and wondered if maybe he read minds. “They?”

“My branch of the government. Such as it was. We all had the Grim Reaper put on us. It's not a badge of courage to me or something I'm proud of. And God knows, the shit is all over my back, so getting it removed, even if I had the free goddamn time, would hardly be an option.”