Immortal (25 page)

“That truly touches me.”

There was yet another long, long silence. “I don't have much more to say.”

“That's okay. We can sit here and just see if anything bubbles up for you.”

And that's what they did. Until Devina glanced at the discreetly set clock on the side table. “I guess our time is up.”

“So it is.”

Getting to her feet, she grabbed her Prada bag and slung it onto her shoulder. She didn't bother to get out her checkbook. If she won the war, she was going to own the woman's soul, so if she needed help, it was going to be free and then some. And if she lost? What was the therapist going to do? Sue her?

Ha.

The therapist used her hands to push herself forward to the edge of the couch and then she heaved her body up off the cushions. With quick efficiency, she pulled her loose clothing into place as if her size made her feel self-conscious and the wardrobe was her way of covering things up.

Devina knew how that felt.

“So, bye, then.” Devina lifted her hand. “Yeah. Bye.”

Without waiting for a response, she went for the door, but something stopped her from leaving.

Pivoting around, she couldn't fight the absurd conviction that she needed—

As if the therapist knew exactly what she wanted, the woman held her arms out. Devina walked over and bent down . . . and allowed herself to be wrapped in an embrace that seemed to burrow in deep, penetrating her outer lie to her inner case of hump-ugly—and accepting her nonetheless.

Closing her eyes, she just stood there and accepted the shelter she was offered.

Something told her it might be the only respite she got for a very, very long time.

Well, wasn't this the day for trips down memory lane, Sissy thought as she stared out of the Explorer's back window. Too bad it wasn't in a happy-Christmases-of-the-past kind of way.

As Jim pulled up to one of the many warehouses in the old wharf area of Caldwell, she had to brace herself for going into yet another place she had no interest in ever seeing again.

“Are you sure we have to do it here?” she asked, looking up at the five-story-high, block-wide building.

As a light rain began to fall, it seemed like the cloud cover up above had arrived only because even the sun didn't want any part of what was about to go down.

Eddie leaned around in his seat. “The closer we get to where the infection entry happened, the more successful we're gonna be.”

Her eyes flipped to the rearview mirror. Jim was staring at her from behind the wheel, his blue eyes remote—but it was funny. She could read him now. He was viciously angry and trying not to show it . . . and that made her love him even more.

He nodded. Once.

“Okay,” she said, pushing open her door.

Her hand went to her stomach. Already, the skin was
beginning to burn—and she didn't need to lift her sweatshirt to check to see what it was. She already knew. Those cuts in her skin, the symbols that the demon had carved into her flesh as part of whatever ritual had been performed on her, were back, activated by the proximity to where she'd been killed.

The horrible scars had done this before when Jim had taken her here, in hopes of helping her understand what had happened to her.

Guess this was proof she had something in her still, huh.

The trip up to the demon's former loft was a blur. Or maybe she was deliberately blocking out all the cultivated-rustic, faux-distressed-style decor as well as the fact that those angels were magically getting through any door that was locked.

Good thing, because there were seven dead bolts on the loft entrance they were after.

After those were sprung one by one, she walked into the vast, open space—and that was when she realized they'd all gone invisi: There were no echoes of footsteps, no rustling of those plastic Hannaford bags, not even the sound of Adrian breathing hard from having dragged himself up the stairs.

She stopped dead as she looked over to the far corner and saw the open door to the gray marble bathroom.

Something was pressed into her hand. A blue carton of Morton Salt.

“Come on,” Jim said. “Help me.”

It was exactly the kind of diversion she needed, and she followed his instructions to the letter, going over to the nearest wall and starting to pour out a thin line of sodium that was supposed to go all the way around the space.

“I'll do the bathroom,” he told her after he watched her for a bit.

The hiss of the falling granules sounded like a snake, and no
matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get the white rush to fall in a perfectly straight line.

Further, the loft was so large, she needed two whole things of the stuff.

Just as she was finishing up, the scent of something clean and fresh brought her head around. Eddie and Jim had lit up what looked like cigars, and were exhaling pale smoke as they walked around her line. And inside the bathroom, she could hear liquids being poured into the sink and sloshed around.

Heading over to that horrible room and leaning in, she had to rub her stomach as the burning sensation got even more intense. Adrian was pouring witch hazel and hydrogen peroxide into the basin, empty bottles of white vinegar and crushed plastic lemon juice containers littering the sink next to him.

Something glinted on the closed toilet seat and she frowned. “Are those . . .”

“Guns?” He glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah. They are.”

Sissy approached slowly, as if the things might decide to think on their own—something that seemed reasonable considering the barrels of both were pointed at her. God, they were unlike any kind of pistol she'd ever seen, the entire grip and body of the weapon made of glass.

They were like the daggers, she thought.

And they had stoppers on them.

“Water pistols?” she asked.

“Special water.” Submerging his hand into the brine in the sink, Ad began to stir it slowly in circles. Words left his lips, spoken so quickly and softly they were unintelligible to her.

“What are you saying?”

Abruptly, another scent reached her nose . . . it was that of a fresh field, as bright and clean and vivid as something that could
be seen. And that was when he stopped, took both guns, and submerged them, bubbles rising up as their bellies were filled.

“Okay, now we need to get set up in here.” Eddie came over to her. “'Scuse me.”

As she stepped aside, the angel took out a compass and held the thing up. Walking around the bathroom tile, he stopped and took squat votive candles out of his pockets.

“No,” Jim said. “In the tub. We need to do it where she was . . . you know.”

“It'll be easier here.”

“Tub faces north.”

“I need to walk around her.”

“I'm doing it.”

Eddie gritted his teeth like he was determined not to say the first thing that came to his mind. “Jim. You're too close to all this.”

“I'm doing it, and she's getting in that fucking tub.”

On that note, Jim popped the top on some more Morton and made a circle around the room, stretching over the tub to make sure a line went around the far edge against the marble wall. The only place he didn't hit was the windowsill.

By the time he was done, Eddie had placed candles at the four compass points along the lip of the tub. He lit them with a Bic lighter that she'd seen Jim use and then he took one of the crystal guns for himself and gave the other to Adrian.

Jim puffed his cigar a couple of more times, the air becoming saturated with the smell of ocean breezes, spring sunshine, fresh rain. And then he dropped the stub to the marble floor and crushed it with his heavy boot.

“Let me help you in there.” Putting out a hand for her, he looked at Eddie. “She's not getting naked.”

Naked?

Eddie nodded. “That's okay.”

Oh, God, it was time, she thought.

Gathering her courage, Sissy accepted Jim's help—needed it, too. As she put one leg and then the other over the high side of the tub, she started shaking all over. But that wasn't the real problem. Her stomach burned so badly, she had to curl in on herself.

“It hurts,” she moaned.

“What hurts?” Eddie leaned in. “What's going on?”

Jim just shook his head. “You don't have to tell him—”

“The symbols,” the other angel said. “I'm right, aren't I?”

She nodded as Jim looked furious—although not at his comrade.

“It's all right,” Eddie said, laying a hand on her shoulder. “We're going to take care of that. Now lie down.”

Sissy glanced at Jim, and as he nodded at her, she stretched out on all the hard, cold porcelain. Linking her hands over her stomach, she thought the tub was kind of like her coffin—and decided, if she came out on the other side of this in one piece, she was going to take showers for the rest of her immortal life.

“Do you remember the verses?” Eddie asked.

Jim answered by beginning to speak in a foreign language, slowly and carefully.

“Nice accent,” Ad muttered as he stood by the window.

“Close your eyes, Sissy,” Eddie said. “Don't look. No matter what happens, don't open your eyes.”

For no good reason—other than the fact that she was losing her mind—she had a split-second
Raiders of the Lost Ark
moment, a quick mental snapshot of Harrison Ford and that actress who had played Professor Ravenwood's daughter tied to a stake before the golden box was opened by that French archeologist.

Don't look, Marion. . . .

God, she wished this were a movie. With a happy ending.

Jim was the last thing she saw before she lowered her lids. He was standing over her, staring down from his great height, his lean face grave as a preacher's over somebody's pine box.

Which seemed pretty damned apt.

I love you
, she mouthed to him.

He didn't lose his rhythm, but dropped down and caressed her cheek. Which was an
I love you, too,
if she'd ever heard one.

“Not your fault,” she whispered.

Instead of waiting to see if he denied that in some way, she closed her eyes. Tried to breathe. Felt her heart pound so hard, she had a headache from the pressure . . . or maybe that was the tub.

The vibration began so subtly, she thought it was just her own case of the trembles. But then it spread out from her torso, growing in reverberation, clearly something other than herself. It was shortly after that that a breeze began to blow across her in spite of the high sides of the tub, her forearms goose-bumping even under the sweatshirt, her nose tickling, her hair ruffling. Had someone cracked that window over—

No, she was turning. Spinning. Slowly.

It didn't stay that way. The speed changed, doubling and redoubling until she was flying around the pivot point of her belly button, centrifugal force lengthening her legs and shoulders, trying to pull her thin, straining her joints as she fought the draw. Nausea twisted her guts like a rope, and the pressure in her head became so great, her skull felt like it was going to break open.

Just as she knew she was going to be torn apart, right at the very moment she was going to lose consciousness . . . all at once, everything stopped.

Abruptly, she was no longer spinning; she was floating, light as a feather on a gentle draft, all the pain gone. And then her
eyesight returned—even as her lids remained locked down, she saw a brilliant white light emanating from beneath her, her body cutting a path through the illumination.

Jim's face appeared over her own, a strange warping making him seem right next to her and very far away at the same time. His lips were moving, that unfamiliar language entering her mind not through her ears, but some kind of psychic connection.

Don't move, Sissy
, he said to her without interrupting the flow of his verses.
You can't move even an inch.

All right
, she thought back to him.

That was when he raised a crystal dagger above her chest.

Oh . . . shit. This was going to hurt.

Bracing herself, she nonetheless lifted her sternum, offering herself up to whatever was going to happen. She'd rather be some version of dead than live with Devina somewhere inside of her, growing roots like a poisonous weed, choking out the essence of her and leaving her body full of evil.

Do it
, she thought at Jim.
Do it hard.

She could have sworn a sheen of tears licked into both of his eyes. And then he hesitated, as if strung between two impossibles.

Do it, Jim. It's all right . . . I want this to happen. Better to be dead than have her in me.

With his teeth clenching hard, he blinked once and drove down with all his strength.

The pain was so great, she screamed until she had no voice left. And then she nearly blacked out as Jim dragged that blade down her torso as if he were gutting a fish. As a great cavern was created, Jim reached into her with his bare hands, probing, searching.

And she screamed. Screamed . . . because that was all she could do. Screamed . . . even though she couldn't breathe. Screamed in spite of the fact that she could not think or—

Jim pulled on something, and it had to be her spine, she thought, because her battered body strained all over—it was as if he were trying to separate her from herself.

No, it was not her spine. As she lifted her head and stared through her closed eyes . . . she saw that it was some kind of black, oily mess, like part of Devina's wall had somehow ended up inside of her—and the evil was refusing to yield. The harder he yanked, the tougher it adhered, until she began to jerk up out of the tub with every pull.

She was going to die.

As her breathing grew so labored she began to black out, she fought to stay with Jim. Focusing on him, she called on all her strength.

And lost the battle.

Lost . . . herself.

Jim leaned so far into the tub that Adrian and Eddie both latched onto him, as if they were afraid of losing him. Probably a good idea, given the way his back was straining until his shoulders trembled and his thighs burned.

But the evil didn't shift. Didn't budge. Didn't move. Goddamn it, it was supposed to—it was supposed to get yanked out like it had in the first round. Eddie had gotten it free of Vin diPietro—

“Let go, Jim!” Ad hollered. “Let it go—we're going to lose you—”

“Fuck you!”

Jim dug his heels in even harder and—

His grip began to slip, and he knew without being told that Sissy would not come through another attempt; they had one shot at this.