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.”
“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?
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.”
CHAPTER 34
Down in the wine cellar, Grier went through the dossiers one by one while she waited . . . and waited . . . and waited some more. . . .
