The pealing laughter in the background was all kinds of bad news, and Jim didn’t waste a moment. He left Dog on the sidewalk and whisked away to downtown, praying that blink-of-an-eye would get him there in time.
The address was irrelevant; all he had to do was zero in on the essence of his boys . . . and he got there just as Adrian took his crystal dagger and nailed some crazy-ass, bleeding bastard right between the eyes.
Jim didn’t need the screech to know that something evil was coming out of that bag of flesh, and there was nothing on hand to stop it from getting into Eddie: The angel was down and then some, tucked into a tight ball, cell phone in what was now a lax hand.
Without stopping to think, Jim threw himself in the direction of the defenseless angel, hurling his body through the air—at the same time Adrian did.
Ad landed first.
And then Jim covered them all, without much hope of protecting anyone—
The strangest thing happened: His body dissolved into light, the same way it had when he’d been furious with Devina during the last round. One moment he was in his corporeal form . . . the next he was pure energy.
Blanketing the angels beneath him. Keeping them safe.
The minion, demon, whatever the hell it was, hit with all the impact of a golf ball on a car hood, boinking off, leaving not even a dent behind. Immediately, it came again, to the same effect. Annnnnd a third time.
There was a long pause that Jim didn’t buy a moment of. He could sense the presence circling them, searching for a way in.
All the while, it was clear Eddie was bleeding. The smell of copper was too bold to be from the body over by the alley’s brick sidewall. Hell, maybe both of the angels were injured.
Time to end this bullshit.
Jim retracted himself, rising up into a column of brilliant light that nonetheless illuminated nothing of the grungy environs and threw no shadows. Squaring off at the evil, he focused everything he had on the smoky stain in the air—
And blew the fucker apart.
The explosion had no flash, but the screech was as loud as an SUV braking on dry pavement, and then there was a strange, pattering follow-up on the ground, as if sand were being poured out of a satchel.
Jim resumed his corporeal form and knelt over his boys. “Who’s hurt?”
Adrian groaned and rolled off his best friend, his hand clasping his side. “Him. Stabbed in the stomach.”
Ad had clearly been nailed as well, but Eddie was the one who wasn’t moving. Although at least when Jim touched the angel’s shoulder, the guy flinched.
“How you doing?”
When there was a whole lot of no-answer, Jim glanced around. They needed to get off the streets. This was a busy area of the city at night, and the last thing he wanted was for some well-intentioned kibitzer to 911 the sitch. Or worse, for a mugger to come by. Or a policeman on patrol.
“How about you?” he asked Adrian as he measured the other end of the alley.
“I’m fine.”
“Oh, really.” Office buildings. Warehouse next to them. “Why are you wincing like that?”
“Constipation.”
“Yeah. Right.”
There was no chance they could go back to the hotel. They needed more privacy than what they’d get there, and anyway, there was no way he could carry Eddie through the frickin’ lobby: Even though he could camo them both, the guy would still leave a trail of blood.
Then again, it was all a moot point because there was no flying with that kind of weight. He needed to find them shelter close by.
“You mobile?” he asked Adrian.
“Depends. Walking? Yeah. Flying? Don’t think so.” Jim scooped his arms under Eddie’s prone body. “Brace yourself, big boy. This is gonna hurt.”
With a surge, Jim threw the muscles of his thighs into service and hefted the angel’s weight off the damp pavement. In response, Eddie groaned and tightened up, which was a bene, as it made the guy easier to hold on to.
Also meant the bastard was still with them.
Before Jim could start walking, Eddie’s cell phone hit the ground and skittered away, knocking into Adrian’s combat boot.
The angel bent down and picked it up. The screen was glowing and the transparent wash of blood across it made the thing throw off red light. Pushing his wet hair back, Ad said, “So he called you.”
“Yeah.” Jim nodded at the bank across the street from the alley’s opening. “We’re going in there.”
“How.”
“Through the front door.” As Jim began striding forward, he muttered to Eddie, “Damn, son, you weigh as much as a fucking car.”
The shuffling behind told him that Ad was along for the ride. Likewise with the hoarse commentary: “A bank? That place is going to be more than locked. So short of—”
As they came up to the entrance of the glass-enclosed lobby, the interior lights went off, the security system disengaged, and the front door . . .
Opened. Wide.
As soon as they were inside, everything righted itself except for the lights and the motion sensors.
“How did you pull that off?” Adrian breathed.
Jim glanced over his shoulder. The angel behind him looked like a train wreck: face too pale, eyes too wide, blood on his hands and dripping down his wet muscle shirt.
“I don’t know,” Jim said softly. “I just did it. And you need to sit down. Right now.”
“Fuck that—we have to treat Eddie.”
True enough. The trouble was, in this situation . . . Eddie was the guy he’d go to to ask what the hell to do.
Time to start praying for a miracle, Jim thought.
CHAPTER 23
Veck felt the change in Reilly immediately: Even though he was inside her, mentally, she had put her clothes back on, stepped out of his door, and driven away.
Shit.
Moving a hand down between their bodies, he held on and pulled out. “I know what you’re thinking.”
She rubbed her eyes. “Do you.”
“Yeah. And I should probably say something like, ‘This was a mistake.’ Just so you have your out.”
Before he settled into the cushions of the couch beside her, he reached down and picked up his shirt, draping it over her naked body.
Pulling the thing up to her chin, she studied his face. “By all measures, it was. It is.”
Okay, ouch.
“But I just couldn’t stop myself,” she said softly.
“Temptation is like that.” And he needed to get it through his head that that was probably all it was on her side.
Her eyes shifted to the floor next to the couch . . . where his wallet lay open, another condom clearly tucked into its flaps.
“I should probably go,” she said roughly.
Christ, why had he always kept two in there?
And her leaving was the last thing he wanted—and the last thing he would get in the way of. “You’re going to
