“Are you kidding me,” she demanded.
He stopped dead in his tracks. But instead of turning around, he just dropped his head, as if he were too tired to hold it up anymore.
“I thought you were supposed to be fighting the war.” She went over to him, getting right in front of his well-used body. “But that’s not what you did all night, was it.”
“Sissy … you don’t understand.”
“Oh, please, like you’re going to hit me with another ‘Stay out of it, this is all toooooo complicated for you, little girl’? Do you honestly think I don’t know what the walk of shame looks like? Christ, I saw it all the time in my dorm. I just never thought I’d associate it with you.”
He pushed a hand through his wet hair and finally met her in the eye. “I’m going to bed now.”
“Okay, great. So I guess Adrian and I’ll just go find the soul—”
“We lost the round, okay? We lost.”
Sissy stopped breathing for a moment. Then that anger deep inside of her flared. “Because you were fucking around with some woman, right?”
“As a matter of fact … that’s exactly the case.”
“Some savior you are. God, you’re
As Sissy pivoted on her heel, Jim watched her walk off. It was probably for the best. No, definitely for the best.
She was right; he had spent the night fucking. And when the round concluded itself? He’d been with Devina when she’d gotten the signal. Naturally, she’d insisted he come down to Hell with her to get her flag, and he’d gone because, once again, the only virtue she had was that she couldn’t be in two places at once.
As long as she was with him? She wasn’t with Sissy and Adrian and Eddie.
And with the way things were right now, that was the best he could hope for … the only thing he could expect to go his way.
So he’d sat down there and witnessed the soul arrive, a black shadow streaming the length of the well, entering the viscous wall, a fresh scream pealing out as the damned realized that death had not freed him at all.
In fact, he was trapped forever. Tortured forever. Not life everlasting … more like life never-ending.
And then he’d watched as Devina had taken a guitar string, a gold earring shaped like a shell, and an old Rolex watch out of her pocket.
“Just more to add to my collection,” she’d said with a self-satisfied smile.
After that? No more reason to stay. And even the demon had been yawning like she’d needed some rest…
The slam of Sissy’s door went through Jim like a bolt of lightning, his legs nearly going out from under him. The weakness wasn’t simply because he was physically exhausted. Spiritually, he was coming to realize, he was dying inside.
If Devina was a parasite, as Eddie had said, and she entered through a wound in the soul … he knew he was making the infection in him worse every time he saw her, anytime he was with her. But even knowing that, he would have done no differently tonight.
Sacrifices were to be made. Had to be.
For some reason, he thought of the night he had spent sitting outside of Sissy’s room like a dog.
That was the closest he was ever going to be to her.
And that hurt more than anything else.
Shutting himself in his room, he went over and got in his bed. The lights were off, and even though the daylight was coming soon, the room was dark because of the velvet drapes that were thick enough to keep a vampire safe from even July sunlight.
Within hours the cycle of the war would start again, another soul ready to be conquered or lost. And assuming the Maker didn’t come and recruit him into Nigel’s vacated seat at the tea table, Jim was now down one, the momentum of the war having shifted dramatically in the opposite direction.
Somehow, by some miracle, he needed to find the strength to fight again, at least until he learned whether Devina had spoken the truth … or had lied as usual.
He had no idea where the focus and drive were going to come from.
His tank was truly empty.
So maybe Devina was, for once, right. For the first time in his life, he saw the value of quitting. He sure as shit wasn’t doing anyone any good with the way things stood now.
Closing his eyes, he let his body take over, the need for sleep canceling everything out, erasing even the fact that Sissy was pissed off down the hall, and Adrian was somewhere in the house no doubt aching from the sacrifices he himself had made, and Eddie was still lying in state, smelling as beautiful as a spring meadow.
He was a blank slate as he was claimed by a black void, his last conscious thought that he knew why Nigel had done what he had.
And he didn’t blame the archangel one bit.
Chapter
Fifty-eight
“Okay, I think that’s all I need.”
As Detective de la Cruz, the one Cait had met outside the Palace Theatre, closed his little booklet, Cait winced and went to rub her eyes.
“Ow.” Yeah, not touching much of her puss would be a good idea. If she remembered correctly, she had a dozen stitches in it.
“Can I get the nurse for you?” the man asked, concern on his tired face.
“No, I’m fine.” She pulled the white hospital sheets up higher on herself. “Just have to remember not to…”
Make any contact with anything on her body, whatsoever.
He gently touched her shoulder, being careful not to get in the way of her IV. “I’m going to put in my report that it was justifiable homicide, Ms. Douglass. I don’t think this incident is going to go to a grand jury, I really don’t. The D.A. and I have worked together for a long time and there’s a lot of trust between us. If you hadn’t killed him, he’d have finished the attack on you. Guaranteed.”
“Thank you, Detective. I’ve never … I never thought something like this would happen to me.”
“You survived. And you’re going to get through this. It’s going to take time, but … you’ll come out of it.”
She could feel tears coming again, but God, she’d cried enough for ten years. “Thanks.”
“Call me if there’s anything I can do for you, okay? And I’ll e-mail you a list of counselors that have experience with this stuff. They can really help on the flipside. Trust me.”
He smiled at her, and then walked out, shutting the door quietly behind himself. Turning her head to the window across her private room, she stared at the gathering sun, and listened to the beeping behind her, and the hushed voices at the nursing station outside, and the bustle in the hall of people coming and going.
She hurt all over, her body aching in places she hadn’t even known she had. And she wished, more than anything, that she had someone to call, somebody who could come and tell her, even though she wouldn’t have believed it, that everything was going to be all right.
She’d decided not to get in touch with her parents. Not yet. Even if they were in the country, she wouldn’t have wanted them to come rushing east with their manic prayers and Bible verses. She wasn’t as angry with them as she’d always been, but she wasn’t up to all that, either. And she couldn’t call Teresa. God, no … she’d shot the woman’s favorite singer dead, for godsakes.
Then again, knowing her old roommate? The fact that G.B. had turned out to be a homicidal maniac was going to change her opinion pretty damn fast.
For all Cait knew, she was going to be hero in the woman’s eyes when they saw each other next: Teresa
