Just like the man’s oddly matte, black eyes.
“Let’s do this,” Isaac said.
“Where’s your other gun. I know you’ve got one.”
“Come and get it.”
“You really want to fuck with me?”
Isaac reached in and took out his other weapon. “Where do you want it?”
“Loaded question. On the floor and give it a kick.”
As Isaac bent down, so did the other man. And it wasn’t until they’d both righted themselves that Isaac realized his first gun, the one with the silencer, had been picked up by a black-gloved hand.
“So yeah,” the second in command drawled, “Matthias has enjoyed the little convos you two have been having and he wants me to keep you in holding until he gets here.” The shark-eyed bastard drew up close. “But here’s the thing, Isaac. There are larger issues at play and this is one situation that your boss is not in charge of.”
What was with the “your boss” thing, Isaac wondered.
And then he frowned as he realized that the guy’s arm, the one that had been broken just a day and a half ago, seemed to be fully healed.
And that grin was wrong . . . there was something wrong about that grin, too.
“Things are taking a different course,” the second in command said. “Surprise.”
With that, he put Isaac’s gun muzzle to his own chin and pulled the trigger, blowing his head clean off.
CHAPTER 39
Jim came out of his coma with the nape of his neck on fire. He had no clue how long he’d been out, but Ad had clearly moved him back to the bed: The softness under his head was definitely a pillow and not the cold, hard tile by the shower.
As he sat up in the darkness, he was shocked: He felt curiously strong, miraculously steady. It was as if whatever state he had been in for . . . well, hours, assuming he was reading the clock right . . . had rebooted him inside and out.
Which was all good news.
The tightness at the tippy top of his spine, however, was anything but: Isaac.
Isaac was in trouble.
Swinging his legs off the bed and bolting upright, he felt no dizziness, no nausea, no aches or pains. Except for the ants at the base of his skull, he was not just ready to go, but roaring.
“Adrian!” he called out as he went to his duffel and yanked out a pair of jeans.
Where the hell was Dog?
Through the open connector, he could see that the lights were on in the other room, so the angel had to be in there.
“Adrian!” He went commando and jerked on his pants; then grabbed for a shirt. “We’ve got to go!”
He snatched his crystal gun and dagger along with his coat. “Yo, Ad—”
Adrian all but skidded into the room with Dog under his arm. “Eddie’s in trouble.”
Well, didn’t that just make that nape of his feel soooo much better. “What?”
Adrian undid Dog’s leash and let him scamper over to say hello. “He’s not answering his phone. I just called. And called again. And called a third time. Never happens.”
“Fuck.”
As Ad weaponed up, Jim checked over Dog and put some food down and then he and his wingman—literally—took off. Man, he’d never been so grateful for the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it ride of those flapping numbers on their backs: Only minutes later, they were in Beacon Hill.
He and Adrian landed in the walled garden in a shimmering blaze and they kept themselves hidden from prying eyes because it was only four in the afternoon. The house looked fine on the outside and the red glimmering spell was still in place, but his neck was killing him. And where in the hell was Eddie—
“Shit,” he spat as he saw the soles of the angel’s combat boots sticking out from under a bush.
Jim beat feet over and crouched down. The guy was flat on his ass, looking like he’d played chicken with a bulldozer and lost. “Eddie?”
The grounded angel opened his eyes. “Holy hell . . . what . . . I don’t know what happened. One minute I was up. Next . . .”
“You were a welcome mat.”
Adrian reached out a hand to help his best friend up. “What the fuck was it?”
“No clue.” Eddie slowly got to his feet. Then he looked over at Jim and cringed. “Jesus Christ . . .”
Jim frowned and glanced around. “What?”
“Your face . . .”
Okay, maybe he only just felt better. Hopefully the looks part would come later. “You’re saying my days as a calendar model are over?”
“Didn’t know you were into that.” Eddie shook his head. “Listen, Isaac wants to talk to you. ASAP.”
Jim glanced at Adrian. “You stay with the welcome mat.”
“Like I would be anywhere else?”
Jim jogged over to the house. The back door was wide open, which was another piece of bad news—and shit only got more critical as he went into the kitchen.
God, you never got used to the smell of a mortal gunshot wound: There were different flavors, gut versus chest versus brain, but the palette was everything metallic between the lead of the shot and the copper of the fresh blood.
First body he found was a man he knew: Captain Alistair Childe. The poor guy was lying in the archway that led out into the front hall, having crumpled to the floor in a heap.
Not the source of the blood, though. There was none on the clothes or the tile, and Childe was breathing evenly in spite of the little knockout nap he was having.
Body number two was halfway down to the front door and clearly the source of the smell. . . . Yeah, wow, that bastard was a candidate for a closed coffin if Jim had ever seen one: His face was distorted from the inside out, the bullet having traveled up the meat and bone of his chin and nose before exiting on a hrow-open-the-doors-and-sing-like-Ethel-Merman routine at the crown of his skull.
Going by the snake tattoo around the guy’s neck, it had to be Matthias’s second in command.
And Isaac was standing over the guy with a puss full of what-the-fuck.
Rothe looked up and raised his weaponless hands. “He did it himself. He fucking did it . . . himself. Damn it. . . . How’s the father?”
Jim knelt beside the captain to double-check. Yup, Childe had been beaned on the head, likely with the butt of a gun, but he was already starting to moan as if he were coming around.
“He’ll be all right.” Jim rose up and headed down to Isaac and the other guy. As he got closer, the smell got worse—
He slowed and then stopped altogether. And rubbed his eyes.
A shimmering gray shadow covered the body of Matthias’s second in command from head to foot, moving around the arms and legs and blown-off head in the same way Jim’s spell shifted and covered the house they were all in. And the blood was all wrong—gray, not brilliant red.
Devina, Jim thought. She was either in the man or had taken him over.
“He just put it under his chin and pulled the trigger.” Isaac sank down onto his haunches and nodded to the gun that was in the corpse’s right hand. “He used my weapon to do it.”
“Get away from the body, Isaac.”
“Fuck that, I have to clean it up before—”
Jim wasn’t interested in arguing and grabbed hold of the guy, pulling him up and back a couple of feet. “You don’t know what it is.”
“The hell I don’t. He came to pick me up.”
Jim glared at Isaac. “Last I heard you were lamming it.”
“Change of priorities.”
Damn it, get abducted for twelve hours and the world goes to shit: Isaac turning himself in, dead demon in a civilian’s front hall, no one making sense anymore.
“I won’t let you go back in, Isaac. Or sacrifice yourself to keep someone else alive.” Because how much you want to bet that was what was going on here.
“Not your choice. And no offense, but I still can’t imagine why you give a shit.” The soldier took out one of XOps’ transistors, which had this time been disguised as a Life Alert. “Besides, it’s moot. I’ve already resummoned.”