Possession

Her savior didn’t look like anything close to a saint. His eyes were narrowed into slits, his upper lip had curled off his teeth, and the rage radiating out of him was probably the only thing that could have gotten through to her.

His voice, when he spoke, was a snarl. “I saw you dead, how ’bout that. I broke through a door and found you bled the fuck out. I was too late to save you then, so call me stupid for trying to do right by you now.” He stuck his finger in her face. “You want to get all frustrated and shit because you don’t know who you are? Fine. But don’t burn down my fucking house, and don’t resent me because I don’t fucking know what your deal is.” He jabbed his finger at his own chest. “You think I know myself in this mess? I don’t. I don’t have a goddamn clue about so much of it all. Jesus Christ.”

With that, he was the one who spun off and went back for the house, all the while dragging that injured leg behind him like it hurt like hell.

How he was walking on that cast, she had no idea…

As she watched him go back across the road, she regretted the whole evening. And yet even as she calmed down, under her surface … the anger was still there, simmering along.

To think she’d assumed that Hell would be the worst thing that happened to her.

This … seemed so much harder. 

Chapter Twenty-two

Jim locked himself in his bedroom. And it wasn’t because he was sulking.

He didn’t trust himself at the moment. He was beat to shit, partially starved, and angry as hell—not exactly a trifecta of healthy relating.

Rifling through his stuff, he found, through the grace of God, a pack of unopened Marlboros in his winter parka. As he lit one up and sat down on his bed, he ran through what he was going to need to cut the cast off his leg. Some kind of saw?

Underneath the plaster or whatever the hell it was, he knew damn well the bone was probably still broken, but similar to the way the scratches on the backs of his hands were healing in front of his eyes, the leg had to be doing the same. Guess it made sense. What kind of savior would he be if he was sidelined by injury?

Wonder if he cut off his arm, would it grow back?

Exhaling, he watched the smoke curl up toward the ceiling. Then he put the cig in between his teeth and went for his crystal knife—the one he had left. ’Cuz the other was in the cab of his truck—or in the CPD’s evidence room, more likely.

The weapon was as beautiful as it was deadly, the ultimate lights-out switch for minions and harpies alike— two subspecies of demon he had had the joy of coming into contact with lately. It was also handy-dandy when it came to exorcisms, as he’d learned in the first round.

Shit, that felt like forever ago.

As he turned the blade over in his palm, the prism caught the illumination from the lamp on the bureau, a rainbow of colors flashing and making him think of Eddie.

That angel wouldn’t have approved of any of this. Not the trade. Not Sissy here on this side. Not the distractions.

Jim took another drag and angled the tip onto the cast, right in front, below his knee. As he pushed down, there was some initial resistance, but then the plaster gave way, the blade cleaving a path down, down, down along his shinbone. Jim was careful to go slowly—and as he progressed, all kinds of in-the-field injuries came back to him, times when he’d been cut or wounded and had had no medical anything to fall back on.

Just like the good ol’ days. Except he wasn’t getting shot at while he was treating himself.

Things were looking up.

Although, meh … if he were honest, he felt like he’d been popped in the sternum by a forty. As long as he lived, in any sense of the word, he was never going to forget the sight of Sissy rushing into the path of that car.

Seeing her dead once had been more than enough—and then he’d had the chaser of her being in Hell. Yup, more than plenty, thanks.

Just leave me alone, okay?

Refocusing, he finished the cutting job at his foot and laid the blade aside on the messy sheets. After taking a drag on his cigarette, he turned his fingers into claws and penetrated the fault line he’d created in the plaster, prying the cast apart until it cracked free and fell off.

His leg looked just the same. So not a compound fracture, obviously.

Rubbing his calf to get rid of the itchies, he finished his coffin nail and ground the thing out. Then he stood up and put some weight on his leg as a test. Held like a dream. Achy? Yes. But it worked—and with the help of its twin, took him out and to the bathroom, where he ditched the johnny, showered, shaved, and brushed his teeth.

His stomach was hungry. The rest of him was not. In fact, as he went back to his room with a towel around his hips, all his brain wanted him to do was get drunk. Really hammered, seeing-double drunk. Tragically, he didn’t think there was any alcohol in the house—at least not that had been made after Prohibition.

Throwing the towel into the dirty pile, he collapsed on his bed, sprawling out on his back like da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man—

The lamp across the way flickered as if the bulb was fritzing out—or maybe the electricity was failing.

Then everything went dark.

“Annnd something else breaks in this house.”

Crap, he really should go back out there and get Sissy. Bring her in from the proverbial rain. Apologize for biting her head off.

And he intended to do all that—just after he rested his heavy eyes for five minutes. Besides, she probably needed a little more time to cool off. What a temper—and bizarrely, that made her even more attractive.

Suggested there might be passion—

Like a cop facing off at an armed suspect, he ordered, “Stop it. Right there.”

Put down the inappropriate thoughts and step away with your hands on your head, not on your cock.

Huh. Wonder what Miranda rights would look like under that scenario … You have the right to remain erect, but anything you do to yourself will be used against you in a court of conscience—

Okay, he was losing it. And it was time to take everyone’s advice and pull it together. He was going to have a five-minute TO followed by clean clothes and a good solid attempt to try to talk to Sissy again.

Taking deep, easy breaths, he chilled himself out, willing his emotions back into the closet that they’d jumped free of—

Knock. Knock.

Jim lifted his head. “Yeah?”

As the door opened a crack, light sliced through all the pitch-black. “Can I come in?”

At the sound of Sissy’s voice, Jim grabbed the covers and yanked them over his crotch. “Now’s not a good time.”

“I just want to apologize.”

“Can I meet you in the kitchen?”

“I’m really sorry, Jim,” she said hoarsely.

“Shit. Me, too.”

With a graceful shift, she peered around the door, and God, in that illumination streaming in from behind her, her blond hair looked like a halo. Momentarily struck by her presence, he rubbed his eyes, thinking maybe this was a dream. Maybe he’d fallen asleep quick, and his subconscious had presented this chance to make up.

“I’m cold,” she said in a small voice.

“I’ll give you a sweatshirt.” He went to get up, and remembered the whole naked thing. “Actually … ah, it’s over there.”