“Sir, I’m going to ask you to get back in bed—you’re a slip-and-fall risk. And you should not have taken out the—”
He ignored the new nurse. “I’m leaving. Right now—AMA, yeah, I know.”
He shut the door in her face and started the shower. For some reason, as he refocused on the mirror, he thought of Mels Carmichael. No wonder her first reaction had been in the OMG category.
Not exactly a looker—
Christ, why was he thinking like that? What did it matter how anyone viewed him?
In a quick surge of coordination, he reopened the door to the room and stuck his head out. The nurse was gone, but no doubt she was coming back with someone who had Dr. in front of his or her name—time to move fast. He snagged the card that Mels had left and put it in the wallet. Then he grabbed the clothes from the closet and shut himself in the bathroom.
Ten minutes later he had clean hair and a clean body and was dressed in a plain black T-shirt, a black windbreaker, and a pair of loose jeans.
On his way out the door, he snagged a cane that he inferred had been brought for him.
The thing felt normal against his palm, and his gait was much faster with it. Like he was used to using one.
Heading for the elevators, he didn’t check in with anyone, no good-byes, no signing on the dotted line. Their billing department would find the man at the address listed on the driver’s license.
And maybe so would he.
Adrian’s scream woke Jim up and torpedoed him out of bed, his body landing in the attack position. With a crystal dagger in one hand and an autoloader in the other, he was ready for business of the human or Devina variety. Dog, being no dummy, just headed under the box spring, taking cover.
“I’m okay,” Ad said. With all the conviction of someone bleeding from an artery.
As Jim shot around the corner, he thought, Yeah. Right.
In the sunlight that streamed through the flimsy drapes, the angel looked absolutely wasted as he sat there sprawled on the floor, dark circles under his eyes, his black hair messed up, his hands shaking as he pulled at the loose collar of his Hanes T-shirt. His piercings, those pieces of metal that circled his lower lip and went up his earlobes and marked his brow, were the only things that sparkled. Everything else was all about the dead-but- breathing.
His pilot light had gone out.
Jim went over and held his hand down to the guy. “Time to get up.”
The other angel clasped his palm, and for a moment Jim stiffened, an unpleasant sting tunneling up his own forearm and making his instincts tingle in a bad way. But then he heaved Ad off the floor, and whatever it was disappeared.
“You been to see Nigel and the boys yet?” Adrian asked as he walked around like he was trying to shake whatever had gotten to him.
“What the hell for.”
“Good point.”
On that note, the other angel went into the bathroom and shut the door. After the toilet flushed, the shower came on, and then the sink.
Going over, Jim settled at the jamb and talked to the flimsy wood. “What was the dream about.”
When there was no answer, he curled up a fist and pounded. “Adrian. Tell me.”
God knew that Devina used all kinds of tricks to get what she wanted. The idea that she might have B&E’d Ad’s mental back door while he was sleeping was a well, duh.
He pounded some more.
When there was no answer, he fucked off modesty and barged in.
Through the clear plastic shower curtain, he got an eyeful of Adrian down on the ground again, this time with tile under his ass: He was crammed in the stall, his knees up, his elbows in against his chest, his head buried into his palms. But he wasn’t crying, or cursing, or falling apart, and maybe that was the scariest part. The angel was just sitting under the warm spray, his huge body folded up on itself.
Jim put the toilet cover down and sat on the thing. “Talk to me.”
After a moment, the angel said roughly, “She was Eddie. In my dream, she was Eddie.”
Shit. “That’ll make you scream.”
“He was there, too. He woke me up, actually. Goddamn it, Jim…seeing him was…”
As the sentence trailed off, Jim took particular care inspecting his dagger’s blade. “Yeah, I know.”
“I’m going to kill her.”
“Only if you get there before I do.”
Adrian let his arms fall to the sides, so that his fists rested in the choppy pool of water forming around his ass. He looked defeated, but that was just for this moment. That icy rage would be back as soon as that demon came anywhere near them, and frankly, the predictable response was going to be a problem: You didn’t want your backup to go rogue on you, and that kind of mental state was hard to reason with.
“I think you need to ask Nigel for someone else,” Ad said softly. Like he could read minds.
“I don’t want anybody else.”
Except that was a lie. He was still coming to terms with his own abilities and weapons—sure, the learning curve wasn’t as steep as it had been in the first couple rounds, but he was hardly up to speed. And Devina wasn’t the kind of enemy where a marginal performance was even remotely acceptable.
So he needed some rock solid to back him up.
In all honesty, Eddie was the missing piece here. And that was precisely why he’d been taken out by the enemy.
Fucking bitch.
“Do you know anyone else?” Jim asked.
“There was another guy—above me and Eddie, actually. Almost on Nigel and Colin’s level. But he ran into some problems—last I heard he was in the In Between. Then again, he was a real wild card. You might as well stick with me in that case.”
“We’ve got to get Eddie back somehow—”
“He’s the only one who would know how to do that.” Adrian let out a groan and got to his feet, his massive frame rising like a tree. “Maybe Colin.”
Jim nodded and refocused on his crystal dagger. The weapon was clear as an ice cube, strong as steel, light as a breath. Eddie had given it to him—
A squeak and a thump brought his head back to his remaining partner. Ad had picked up the soap, but then dropped it, his hands lifting in front of his face, his mouth working like he was trying to curse.
“What’s wrong?”
“Oh…fuck…” Ad flipped them around and looked at the backs. “Shit, no…”
“What?”
“They’re black.” The guy shoved out his arms. “Can’t you see? She’s in me—Devina’s in me—and she’s taking over—”
Jim had a moment of what-the-fuck, but he knew he had to step in and reel this situation back to reality, PDQ. Putting his dagger down on the sink, he shoved the plastic curtain out of the way, and grabbed the angel’s thick wrists—
That bad-news sensation hit him again, lighting up the nerve endings in his fingers and palms sure as if he’d put them in acid. Focusing on the guy’s skin, he wondered just what the hell had happened in that dream.
Except the flesh was completely normal. And people who had lost their best friends were allowed to crack up.
They couldn’t stay that way, though.
“Adrian, buddy”—he gave the guy a good shake—“hey,
When the poor bastard finally did, Jim stared into those eyes like he was reaching in and taking hold of a part of the guy’s brain. “You are
