Down in the wine cellar, with Jim Heron's picture staring up out of a dossier, Isaac was pretty damn sure both Childes had lost their minds.
"He's not dead." Isaac glanced between father and daughter. "I'm not sure what you saw or what you heard--"
"He was in my room." Grier shook her head. "That's how I knew you were having the nightmare. He pointed the way so I would go to you. I thought it was a dream, but why would I have pictured his face so clearly?"
"Because you saw him. Last night at the fight. He was with me."
"No, he wasn't."
Right. The guy had stood directly in front of her. "You said he was an angel."
"Well, it appeared as if he had wings."
It was theoretically possible that Heron had paid her a visit--but with the security alarm, you'd have to assume that if he had, he'd merely been on the far side of her French door. In her disorientation from waking up, she'd no doubt only thought he was inside. And that had been just a coincidence with Isaac's nightmare. . . . As for the wings? Jim Heron had been no saint, much less an angel. Whatever she'd seen had to have been reflections in the glass. Had to be.
Grier's dad spoke up. "I'm telling you, he's dead. I keep alert tracers on the Internet on the names of the operatives I know of--and he was shot in Caldwell, New York, four days ago."
Isaac rolled his eyes. "Don't believe everything you read. I spoke with the guy in the back garden here at nightfall. Face-to-face. Trust me, he's alive, and we need him." Isaac got to his feet. "His buddies are watching this house as we speak, and personally, I think Heron's declared a vigilante war on Matthias--so I'm pretty damn sure we can get him to work with us--assuming they haven't killed him already. I believe he's MIA at the moment."
"I hope he turns up then because the more you have to go on, the better." Childe tapped the dossiers. "You should plan on reviewing all of this tonight, filling in the blanks, trying to piece together what you know--even if you don't want to turn in your fellow soldiers, it may aid your own recollections. I'll go upstairs into the hall bath and use my secured phone there to make some calls and get things set as fast as I can."
"Roger that. But I want you to stay away from the windows and not leave the house."
"I'll be careful." Childe glanced at his daughter. "I promise."
As Grier's dad disappeared up the stairs, Isaac checked the Life Alert. The transistor was still showing that the signal had been sent, but there was no answer yet. Which meant either he was too far underground in this wine cellar to receive it . . . or Matthias was taking his own sweet time getting back in touch.
He looked at Grier. "I'd better stay aboveground for a while in case they're trying to reach me."
"What are you going to do? If they want to meet with you right away?"
"Until I turn myself in, I've got a little leeway. But your father needs to work a couple of miracles fast." And please, Lord, let Jim Heron be okay--and show up soon.
She stroked the dossiers with her elegant hand. "He's good at miracles. It's actually his specialty. You should see him in negotiations." Her eyes went down to the file. "I'm going to stay here. I want to see which if any of these men I recognize. There were a number who came to the door when I was growing up and I always wondered who they were."
As she fell silent, he took a step forward. And then another. Around the table he went, until he was by her side.
When she looked up to him, he carefully brushed back a strand of hair from her face. "I'm not going to ask if you're okay, because how could you be."
"Have you ever felt . . . like you don't know your own life?"
"Yeah. And that's what got me to change."
Well, that had been the first step. He was starting to believe that she was the second. And between her father and Jim Heron . . . three was the magic number. God willing.
"You know what?" she said. "I'm really glad I met you."
Isaac recoiled. "How in the good Lord's name can you say that?"
"You were the key that unlocked the lies." She went back to staring at Jim Heron's picture. "I feel like without you it would never have come to light. Only something so shattering . . ."
As she let that drift, he stepped back. "Yeah. That's me."
She nodded absently, turning the page and getting lost in the faces of men who were just like him . . . men who had ruined her family.
Shattered it.
Were the operatives who had killed her brother in there? With notes?
Somehow he doubted her father would put her through that.
"Can I bring you some wine?" he asked before he made himself go.
Grier smiled a little. "I'm surrounded by it."
"True enough." He should have offered coffee. Water. Beer. An oil change. Anything he could do for her or give to her to ease her.
Well now, on that note, there was an improvement he could make. He could leave her.
"I'll be upstairs." When he got to the door, he looked back. She was buried in the dossiers, brows tight, arms in her lap as she leaned forward over the table.
Yeah, leaving her was going to make things so much better.
He turned away and took the stairs up to the kitchen two at a time. Pausing at the base of the back stairwell, he listened. Not a sound. Which made sense if her father had locked himself up in a secured bathroom.
Shit, he couldn't believe that he was going to shine a light on Matthias. But then sometimes natural death was too good for someone. Better that they rot behind bars or get lit up like Times Square in an electric chair.
It was almost as if he was supposed to have met Grier and her father at this precise junction in his life--that the pair of them had been preordained to show him a way out that was far more honorable than what he'd planned.
Jim Heron was going to be important as well, however.
Palming up one of his guns, he slipped out the back door into the garden.
Sidestepping the motion-activated light, he waited in the shadows without making any noise, and sure enough, one of Jim's pals stepped up a moment later. The instant he laid eyes on the guy, it was clear the vibe remained off: This one with the braid had the tight lips and hard stare of a man who still didn't know where a member of his team was.
"Jim not come in for a landing yet?" Isaac asked. Even though the answer was clearly, Fuck no, given that expression.
"I'm hoping you can see him in the morning."
Isaac glanced at his watch. "I don't know if I've got that kind of time."
"Make it."
Easy for him to say. "Will you let me know if he shows?" As the guy nodded once, Isaac got pretty frickin' worried. "Is he all right?" When the man shook his head slowly, Isaac cursed. "You going to tell me what's doing?" Silence. "You know, FYI, people think he's dead."
"All I can say is . . . right now, he wishes he was."
Adrian watched as Eddie talked to Rothe up near the back door, and whereas Ad was usually nosy as hell, he didn't care what they were saying.
Nigel. Cocksucking Nigel.
Mr. Holier-than-thou-aboveboard.
Who was more than willing to let his best asset get used and abused by the enemy just because he was too much of a little bitch to roll up his sleeves and pound Devina into the ground.
Meanwhile Jim was gym equipment for a bunch of pervert assholes.
Man, he just didn't get this do-nothing. If one of his boys was captured and he could spring them? Didn't matter what he had to do, what sacrifice there was to make, where he went: He would get the sorry sonofabitch back. And yet where was their boss man? Having dinner.
Made a guy want to feed Nigel his dessert right up the ass.
Adrian rubbed his face so hard he nearly sanded his nose off. The trouble was, Devina's little workshop wasn't accessible to him and Eddie unless they jumped through her mirror--otherwise she had to take you there herself . . . and she released you only when she was good and ready.
And not before.
That was why they'd gone to Nigel. There was a rumor that the archangels could go down to Hell under certain circumstances--no one knew exactly what those dandies had to do or how it worked. Bottom line, though, was that those four lightweights were their only hope--
As if he knew his name was being taken in vain, Colin appeared from out of nowhere, the dark-haired archangel poofing it up right in front of Adrian's face.
"Shit!" Ad hissed while he leaped back and caught himself on a bush--which promptly broke in half under his heavy body.
He landed like a bag of sand, but didn't stay there. Springing up, he was all about the what-the-fuck: Those boys didn't usually show up willy-nilly on the Earth. "What are y--"
"I got him out."
Ad blinked, the English language suddenly escaping him. Wait a minute. Did he just hear--"Jim? You're talking about Jim?"
"Is out."
"But Nigel said--"
"I'm not discussing that. I got the chosen one out of Devina's lair and I left the poor sod off at your hotel--he needs care."
Eddie came over. "You got him out? But I thought Nigel--"
"I have to go." Colin stepped back and started to fade. "Go help him. He needs it."
"Thank you," Ad breathed, both relieved and sick to his stomach: the recovery from one of Devina's seshes was a bitch. Mostly because the memories were just too damn vivid.
Colin shook his head as he disappeared, his voice all that lingered: "It just wasn't right."
"I'm going to the hotel," Adrian said, unfurling himself to take to the air. "Don't let Isaac out of your--"
Eddie grabbed his arm hard. "Let me handle Jim."
"No."
"You're not up to this, Adrian." Eddie's grip held him to the ground, that big hand squeezing into bone and muscle. "And you know it."
"The hell I'm not."
Breaking free, he took three running leaps and winged up into the air, grabbing onto the night and propelling himself west. The flight back to where they were staying was bumpy and rough--but not because of the wind. It was more like Eddie probably had a point, the SOB.
When Ad got to the Comfort Inn & Suites, he wanted to just barge into their rooms through the walls, but he decided not to chance it: Given that his inner Kit Kat wrapper was loose and flapping, he landed on the lawn and stalked in through the lobby. He had a feeling he was just too scatterbrained and nauseous to successfully push himself through wood and concrete.
The problem was, he knew exactly what kind of shape Jim was going to be in.
As he hit the lobby, a chirpy woman behind the desk "Good evening, sir"'d him, but he waved her off and broke into a jog. There was no waiting for the elevator; a couple was checking in with their kids and they had a cart full of luggage. But even if there had been a clean shot, he wouldn't have been able to wait for so much as the doors to open for him.
Up the stairs. Two at a time. Sometimes three.
When he got to the top floor, his ticker was going a mile a minute, and not just because he'd exerted himself. He didn't have a key to Jim's room, so he took his own and slipped it in and out of the lock of his crib.
He opened the way in on a burst. "Jim? Jim?"
The glow from his bathroom illuminated the rumpled bed that he and Eddie had worked that girl out on the night before, as well as the clothes that were scattered around.
The connector to Jim's was half open, the room beyond dark.
"Jim . . . ?"
He knew the angel was in there. He could smell the candle smoke and the fresh blood and . . . the other things.
The rush to get to the guy evaporated as the reality of what he was about to walk in on clawed its way into his chest and suffocated him. But he was not turning back. He was an asshole of the first order, always had been. He was not, however, a pussy to turn away from the hard stuff.
Adrian walked to the doorway between the two rooms and leaned in. "Jim."
The light in the bathroom behind him cut a path into all the pitch-black, the illumination stopping at the foot of the angel's bed . . . as if it were too polite to show his condition.
After Adrian rounded the jamb, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust--
On a hiss, he vowed, "I'm going to kill that bitch. . . ."
Jim was lying on his side, curled into himself as if to conserve body heat, and he was trembling in fits and starts. A blanket had been pulled over his big, battered body--no doubt by the archangel--and Dog was right by his face, pretzeled into a ball, going nowhere.
As Adrian came over, he got a little wag, but the animal didn't lift his head, staying nose-to-nose with Jim.
The angel appeared to be breathing, his chest rising and falling, a soft wheeze breaching his busted mouth. His hair was matted and there was blood on his face, the features of which no longer looked like his own, thanks to a Michelin Man-like swelling.
Adrian sat down slowly. "Jim?"
No response, so he tried the name game a couple more times. Eventually, Jim's lid cracked.
"Hey," Adrian whispered.
He got a croak and then the eye shut and the body under the blanket shivered in a great seizure.
If this was anything like what Adrian went through--and given the way the guy looked, it was a one-for-one if he'd ever seen it--what Jim really wanted was a bath followed by a shower. But it was too early for that shit. Healing time first--there were just too many broken-andbruiseds to move him--which was the burden of an angel's dual nature: being both real and unreal meant that at least half of you could get fucked-up but good, and shit didn't spring back right away.
Adrian stood and went over to the heating unit that was under the windows. Turning the dial to "sauna," he ditched his leather jacket and shut the connector to the other room, locking them in together. Then he got on the bed, stretched out on top of the thin blanket, and put his chest to the angel's back to warm him.
As he lay there and heard the heater come on with a whir, he felt the earthquakes in Jim's torso and limbs. Part of it was the healing process, which in some ways was more painful than the injuries. And part of it was the deep freeze of shock.
And part of it was the memories, no doubt.
He wanted to put an arm around the guy, but that was just going to be too uncomfortable for Jim: When he'd been in this condition, he'd lain naked without even a sheet on his clawed skin.
After a while, the billowing warmth that fanned out from the heater reached them, arcing over and raining down. Jim obviously felt the flow because he drew in a long breath and exhaled on a ragged sigh.
Lying next to the other angel, Adrian should have expected that this was where Jim would end up, and he had, to a degree. He'd known Devina had wanted the guy . . . back on their first assignment, back on that first night in the club in Caldwell. And he'd served Jim up to her.
With everything but the "to and from" tag.
Hard not to feel responsible for this.
Realllllllllly tough.
"I've got you, Jim," he said hoarsely. "I'm right here for you, man."
