CHAPTER 27
On the lawn at the McCready Funeral Home, Jim didn’t waste a lot of time trying to figure out how Devina had known where to find him: She was here and the issue was how to get rid of her.
“Cat got your tongue, Jim.” Her voice was just as he remembered it—low, smooth, deep. Sexy—provided you didn’t know what was inside her skin.
“Nah. Not hardly.”
“How have you been, by the way.”
“I’m fan-fucking-tastic.”
“Yes. You are.” She smiled, showing perfect pearlies. “I’ve missed you.”
“What a sap.”
Devina laughed, the sound rolling through the chilly night air. “Not in the slightest.”
As a car turned the corner and went by on the street, its headlights illuminated the front of the funeral home and the patches of brown in the lawn and the barely budding dogwood—and did absolutely nothing to Devina. Then again, she didn’t really exist in this world.
The demon’s eyes ran down him and then focused on Matthias. “Back to the issue at hand.”
“There is no issue, Devina.”
“I love when you say my name.” She took a lazy step forward, but Jim wasn’t fooled by the nothing-special. “Whatever are you going to do with him?”
“I was going to put him in his car to wake up. But now I’m thinking I’ll fly him back to Boston.”
“You’ll find that he’s too heavy, I’m afraid.” Another step forward. “Are you worried that I’ll do something bad to him?”
“Like you’re a naughty little girl and are going to tie his shoelaces together? Yup. That’s right.”
“Actually, I have other plans for your old boss.” A third step.
“Do you.” Jim held his ground—literally and figuratively. “FYI, I’m not sure his plumbing works after all the injuries. I’ve never asked, but Cialis only goes so far.”
“I have my ways.”
“Undoubtedly.” Jim bared his teeth. “I’m not going to let you take him, Devina.”
“Isaac Rothe?”
“Both of them.”
“Greedy. And I thought you didn’t like Matthias.”
“Just because I can’t stand the bastard doesn’t mean I want you to have him—or use him like a toy. Unlike the pair of you, I have a problem with collateral damage.”
“How about we make a deal.” Her smile was way too self-satisfied for his liking. “I let Matthias go along his merry way tonight. And you spend a little time with me.”
His blood turned cold. “No, thanks. I have plans.”
“Found someone else? Been unfaithful to me?”
“Not a chance. That would require a relationship.”
“Which we have.”
“Not.” He glanced around just to double-check that she didn’t have reinforcements. “I’m outta here, Devina. Have a nice night.”
“I’m afraid Matthias is not going to make it.”
“Nah, he’s going to be just fine—”
“Will he.” She extended her long, elegant hand.
All at once the man started to moan in Jim’s arms, his face screwing down in agony, his frail limbs spasming.
“I don’t have to even touch him, Jim.” Curling her fingers up tight, like she was squeezing his heart in her palm, Matthias torqued hard. “I can kill him here and now.”
With a curse, Jim combed through what he’d learned from Eddie, trying to pull a spell or an incantation or . . . something . . . out of his ass to stop the onslaught.
“I have toys by the thousands, Jim,” she said softly. “Whether this one lives or dies? Means nothing. Affects nothing. Changes nothing. But if you don’t like collateral damage? Then you better give yourself to me for the rest of the night.”
Shit, put like that, why was he protecting the guy? She’d just find another source to influence Isaac’s outcome. “Maybe it’s better for you to put him in a grave.”
At least Matthias would be out of his hair. Then again, maybe whoever was next in line would be worse.
“If I kill him now,” Devina tilted her pretty head, “you’ll have to live with the fact that you could have saved him but chose not to. You’ll have to add another notch to that tattoo on your back, won’t you. I thought you’d given that kind of thing up, Jim.”
Rage boiled through his body, frothing his blood until his vision started to get wavy. “Goddamn you.”
“What’s it going to be, Jim.”
Jim glanced down at his old boss’s ruined face. The skin across the bone structure had turned an alarming gray color, and his mouth had cranked open even though his breath was shallow.
Fucking A . . .
Fucking hell.
On a curse, Jim turned away, started walking . . . and was entirely unsurprised when Devina materialized in his path.
“Where are you going, Jim?”
Christ, he wished she’d stop saying his frickin’ name.
“I’m taking him to his car. And then you and I are leaving together.”
The smile she gave him was radiant and made him sick to his stomach. But a trade was a trade and at least Matthias would live to see the next dawn—yeah, sure, there was undoubtedly some kind of death waiting in the wings for him, whether it was a physical collapse or his dirty deeds coming back to haunt him. Jim, however, wasn’t going to make the call as to the “when” if he could avoid it. That was up to Nigel and his ilk—or whoever the hell was in charge of destinies.
Tonight, he was going to keep the man alive, and that was all he knew. Because even a sociopath deserved something better than falling prey to the likes of Devina.
And hopefully, Jim would make it through whatever she had planned for him with a little more information about what made her tick—and how to take her down.
Intel remained everything.
Back in Boston, Isaac put the hood of his windbreaker up to hide his face, and then frog-marched Grier’s dad through her front door. Once they were outside, he was very aware of how exposed he was—hood or no hood, his identity was pretty damn obvious. But it was a cost/benefit situation: he didn’t trust Childe and Grier wanted the guy gone.
So do the math.
As he hustled father dearest around to the driver’s side of the Mercedes, the cold air seemed to tighten the man up, the remnants of the hard-core confron with his daughter getting replaced with a determination Isaac had to respect.
“You know what he’s like,” Childe said as he took out his key fob. “You know what he’ll do to her.”
The image of Grier’s smart, kind eyes was inescapable. And yeah, he could just imagine the sort of shit Matthias would hurt her with. Kill her with.
Might even make the father watch again.
Might make Isaac play witness, too.
And didn’t that make him want to throw up.
“The solution is within you,” Childe said. “You know what the solution is.”
Yes, he did. And it was a bitch.
“I beg you . . . save my daughter—”
From out of the shadows, Jim Heron’s buddy with the piercings stepped forward. “Evenin’, gents.”
As Childe recoiled, Isaac grabbed the man’s arm and held him in place. “Don’t worry, he’s with us.” More loudly, he said, “What’s up.”
Shit, he needed to get back in the house here, boys.
“Thought you might like some help.”
With that, the man stared at Childe like his eyes were a phone jack and he was plugging into a wall. Abruptly, Grier’s father started to blink, his lids working Morse code, flip-flip, fliiiiiip, flip, flip. . . .
And then Childe said goodnight, calmly got in his car . . . and drove away.
Isaac watched the taillights turn the corner. “You want to tell me what you just did to that man?”
“Nope. But I’ve bought you some time.”
“To do what?”
“Up to you. At least her father no longer believes he just saw you in that house—which means right now daddy-o isn’t hopping on his cell phone and calling your old boss with where you are.”
Isaac glanced around and wondered how many eyes were on him. “They already know I’m here. I’m about as undercover as the Vegas Strip at this point.”