It was the most beautiful thing Jim had ever seen: When the light had hit it, a child's spectrum of vivid colors had sprung forth, the hues so bright and clear, it was as if his eyes were young again and seeing them for the first time.
But the struggle…he'd been certain Vin was going to die. In the fulcrum of the glow, Eddie had stabbed the man and reached inside his chest and started yanking like he was trying to drag a car out of a swamp. And in response, Vin had screamed from a vast distance, the agony tearing out of his throat as his body had strained.
At that moment, Marie-Terese had lunged forward, but Jim had caught her, instinct telling him she couldn't get in the way of what was going on, no matter how dire things appeared. Interrupting was not in the playbook: This was surgery for the soul and the cancer had to come out. Even if the man died in the middle of it, the extraction attempt was the right course of action.
Jim held her as loosely as he could, and she ended up against him, nails deep in his forearm as she watched, as helpless as he was to affect the outcome.
It was all about Eddie and Vin and whatever fate was going to roll out.
And then it happened. Eddie started to win the battle—what he was pulling on began to give way, first in increments, then with a final, exploding separation that landed the angel on his ass. But there was no time for celebration.
As soon as whatever that black shit was got out of Vin, it was free in the air, a vicious-looking shadow that wafted loose—and immediately came gunning for Marie-Terese. Rippling through the air, it pulled itself together, darkened up like it was gathering strength, and faced off at the woman.
Jim shoved Marie-Terese behind him and forced her up against the wall. Working fast with the crystal gun, he popped the plug on its belly and poured what was inside all over her, until it was dripping off her nose and from the ends of her hair.
He wished he had a bucket of the shit.
Wheeling back around, he braced himself as the shadow hurled itself at them. Impact was not a party, the smoky nonentity registering like a thousand bee stings across his skin. Marie-Terese screamed—
No, it wasn't her. The thing screamed and splintered apart, looking like BB pellets that had been scattered across a floor.
Fucker re-formed, but it didn't take another shot. It boiled for the one window that didn't have salt on its sill and the shattering of glass was a shocker, the sound echoing throughout the house.
At that very same moment, the light in the circle sucked out of the room, and its exit was even louder, a sonic boom that made Jim's eardrums pop and the mirror over the dresser crack into pieces. Eddie was thrown back by the burst of energy and he slammed against the wall just as Vin was revealed on the floor, pale, shaky, covered with sweat.
As he curled over onto his side and drew his knees up to his chest, Marie-Terese broke free of Jim's hold and rushed to him.
“Vin?” She brushed the guy's hair back. “Oh, God, he's freezing cold. Give me the duvet.”
Jim yanked the cover free from the bed and put it in her hands; then he went to check on Eddie, who seemed to be out cold. “You okay there, big man? Eddie?”
The guy jerked to attention and looked around as if he were momentarily lost. To his credit, though, even in his out-of-it state, the crystal dagger was locked in his fist, his knuckles white like the thing was going to have to be pried out of his grip with a pair of pliers.
His expression was not one of triumph.
When he tried to get up, Jim grabbed the guy under the armpits and helped hoist him off the floor and onto the bed. “You're not looking like this went okay.”
Eddie took a couple of deep breaths. “He's clean…and nice move with soaking her.”
“Figured it'd be more effective.” Jim shifted that thick braid over the guy's shoulder and couldn't understand why Eddie seemed so disappointed. “I don't get it. What's the problem?”
Eddie focused on the busted window and shook his head. “This was too easy.”
Shiiiiiiiit.
If this had been a walk in the park, Jim wondered what in the hell a real fight looked like.
Chapter 39
Saul pulled into his driveway in a daze and put the cab in park. In the glow from the garage light, he lifted his eyes to the rearview mirror and tilted his head to the side. With his cut finger, he brushed at the bald spot near his ear and remembered being with the woman in the back of the cab. They'd had sex.
It had been the first time since he'd been to prison ten years ago.
He'd liked it…at least until the end. In the afterglow, as he'd gone lax beneath her, a strange, sickening lethargy had seeped into him, and he'd found himself not so much relaxed as trapped.
That was when she'd taken out the scissors. She'd moved so quickly he couldn't have stopped her even if he'd been alert: Snip of his hair, slice of his skin. Then she'd rubbed his blood in with what she'd taken from his head, dismounted from his hips and disappeared her hands under her skirt.
After that, she'd left him where she'd taken him: in the back of the taxi.
She hadn't even bothered to shut the door, and even though the cold had chilled him, it had been some time before he was able to reach over and pull the thing shut. After he zipped himself up, he gave in to the exhaustion, ignoring the squawking dispatcher and the fact that it wasn't all that bright for him to be so vulnerable downtown even in the middle of the day.
The dream while he'd slept had been horrifying, and in the dim light now, he yanked his head around and double-checked that there was no one in the backseat with him. Except of course there wasn't…he'd locked himself in the car the instant he'd gotten back behind the wheel.
God…the nightmare. In it, he'd been fucked by a decaying monster who was and was not the woman who he'd been with…and in the dream, he'd made some sort of agreement with her. Except he couldn't remember what he'd gotten in return for whatever he'd given.
His beloved…it had something to do with his beloved.
It had been dark by the time two young punks woke him up by opening the front doors of the taxi and rifling through his backpack and his jacket.
Of its own volition, his hand had shot forward and grabbed onto the ponytail of the one by the steering wheel. Snagging hard, he became aware that he was a hundred times stronger than he'd been before he'd slept. Stronger, focused. He felt like…a killing machine.
The kid on the other side of the taxi had taken one look into Saul's face, dropped the wallet in his hand, and disappeared at a dead run.
Saul had snapped the neck of the one with the ponytail by dragging him halfway into the backseat and twisting his head around until there was a crack and a dead body.
He'd left the cooling corpse right on the ground next to where the cab had been parked. And looked up into a security camera.
What luck, though. The red light indicating the thing was on had not been blinking. So there was no record of him or the woman or the two boys.
And that was when it had come back to him: He had wanted to be free from prying eyes, to be able to do as he chose without worrying about being caught. No more hiding weapons, covering tracks, disguising himself, sneaking around.
And so it was done.
Getting in on the driver's side, he'd felt both a weight and an elation, and that was when he'd realized the engine had been on since the woman had left him. So why wasn't he dead from carbon monoxide? It was cold and the heater had been on the entire time.
