by J. R. Ward
Not exactly a looker--
Christ, why was he thinking like that? What did it matter how anyone viewed him?
In a quick surge of coordination, he reopened the door to the room and stuck his head out. The nurse was gone, but no doubt she was coming back with someone who had Dr. in front of his or her name--time to move fast. He snagged the card that Mels had left and put it in the wallet. Then he grabbed the clothes from the closet and shut himself in the bathroom.
Ten minutes later he had clean hair and a clean body and was dressed in a plain black T-shirt, a black windbreaker, and a pair of loose jeans.
On his way out the door, he snagged a cane that he inferred had been brought for him.
The thing felt normal against his palm, and his gait was much faster with it. Like he was used to using one.
Heading for the elevators, he didn't check in with anyone, no good-byes, no signing on the dotted line. Their billing department would find the man at the address listed on the driver's license.
And maybe so would he.
Adrian's scream woke Jim up and torpedoed him out of bed, his body landing in the attack position. With a crystal dagger in one hand and an autoloader in the other, he was ready for business of the human or Devina variety. Dog, being no dummy, just headed under the box spring, taking cover.
"I'm okay," Ad said. With all the conviction of someone bleeding from an artery.
As Jim shot around the corner, he thought, Yeah. Right.
In the sunlight that streamed through the flimsy drapes, the angel looked absolutely wasted as he sat there sprawled on the floor, dark circles under his eyes, his black hair messed up, his hands shaking as he pulled at the loose collar of his Hanes T-shirt. His piercings, those pieces of metal that circled his lower lip and went up his earlobes and marked his brow, were the only things that sparkled. Everything else was all about the dead-but-breathing.
His pilot light had gone out.
Jim went over and held his hand down to the guy. "Time to get up."
The other angel clasped his palm, and for a moment Jim stiffened, an unpleasant sting tunneling up his own forearm and making his instincts tingle in a bad way. But then he heaved Ad off the floor, and whatever it was disappeared.
"You been to see Nigel and the boys yet?" Adrian asked as he walked around like he was trying to shake whatever had gotten to him.
"What the hell for."
"Good point."
On that note, the other angel went into the bathroom and shut the door. After the toilet flushed, the shower came on, and then the sink.
Going over, Jim settled at the jamb and talked to the flimsy wood. "What was the dream about."
When there was no answer, he curled up a fist and pounded. "Adrian. Tell me."
God knew that Devina used all kinds of tricks to get what she wanted. The idea that she might have B&E'd Ad's mental back door while he was sleeping was a well, duh.
He pounded some more.
When there was no answer, he fucked off modesty and barged in.
Through the clear plastic shower curtain, he got an eyeful of Adrian down on the ground again, this time with tile under his ass: He was crammed in the stall, his knees up, his elbows in against his chest, his head buried into his palms. But he wasn't crying, or cursing, or falling apart, and maybe that was the scariest part. The angel was just sitting under the warm spray, his huge body folded up on itself.
Jim put the toilet cover down and sat on the thing. "Talk to me."
After a moment, the angel said roughly, "She was Eddie. In my dream, she was Eddie."
Shit. "That'll make you scream."
"He was there, too. He woke me up, actually. Goddamn it, Jim...seeing him was..."
As the sentence trailed off, Jim took particular care inspecting his dagger's blade. "Yeah, I know."
"I'm going to kill her."
"Only if you get there before I do."
Adrian let his arms fall to the sides, so that his fists rested in the choppy pool of water forming around his ass. He looked defeated, but that was just for this moment. That icy rage would be back as soon as that demon came anywhere near them, and frankly, the predictable response was going to be a problem: You didn't want your backup to go rogue on you, and that kind of mental state was hard to reason with.
"I think you need to ask Nigel for someone else," Ad said softly. Like he could read minds.
"I don't want anybody else."
Except that was a lie. He was still coming to terms with his own abilities and weapons--sure, the learning curve wasn't as steep as it had been in the first couple rounds, but he was hardly up to speed. And Devina wasn't the kind of enemy where a marginal performance was even remotely acceptable.
So he needed some rock solid to back him up.
In all honesty, Eddie was the missing piece here. And that was precisely why he'd been taken out by the enemy.
Fucking bitch.
"Do you know anyone else?" Jim asked.
"There was another guy--above me and Eddie, actually. Almost on Nigel and Colin's level. But he ran into some problems--last I heard he was in the In Between. Then again, he was a real wild card. You might as well stick with me in that case."
"We've got to get Eddie back somehow--"
"He's the only one who would know how to do that." Adrian let out a groan and got to his feet, his massive frame rising like a tree. "Maybe Colin."
Jim nodded and refocused on his crystal dagger. The weapon was clear as an ice cube, strong as steel, light as a breath. Eddie had given it to him--
A squeak and a thump brought his head back to his remaining partner. Ad had picked up the soap, but then dropped it, his hands lifting in front of his face, his mouth working like he was trying to curse.
"What's wrong?"
"Oh...fuck..." Ad flipped them around and looked at the backs. "Shit, no..."
"What?"
"They're black." The guy shoved out his arms. "Can't you see? She's in me--Devina's in me--and she's taking over--"
Jim had a moment of what-the-fuck, but he knew he had to step in and reel this situation back to reality, PDQ. Putting his dagger down on the sink, he shoved the plastic curtain out of the way, and grabbed the angel's thick wrists--
That bad-news sensation hit him again, lighting up the nerve endings in his fingers and palms sure as if he'd put them in acid. Focusing on the guy's skin, he wondered just what the hell had happened in that dream.
Except the flesh was completely normal. And people who had lost their best friends were allowed to crack up.
They couldn't stay that way, though.
"Adrian, buddy"--he gave the guy a good shake--"hey, look at me."
When the poor bastard finally did, Jim stared into those eyes like he was reaching in and taking hold of a part of the guy's brain. "You are fine. There is nothing going on here. She is not in you, she is not here, and--"
"You're wrong."
The bleak words stopped Jim short. But then he shook his head. "You're an angel, Adrian."
"Am I?"
In a grim voice, Jim countered, "Well, put it like this...you better fucking be."
After a tense silence, Jim's mouth started moving, words coming out of it, sensible, chill-out syllables crossing the distance that separated them. But in the recesses of his mind, he sent up a prayer to whoever might be listening.
Devina was a parasite, the kind of thing that wheedled into people and infected them.
Made sense that someone emotionally compromised was more vulnerable.
The tragedy, however, was that he couldn't have the enemy in his back pocket.
No matter how much he loved the guy.
"What happened to your eye?"
As Mels entered her mother's kitchen, she didn't answer the question, but went straight for the coffeepot. The fact that the thing was in the far corner, and she could drink her mug with her back to her mom, was just an added bonus to the caffeine.
Damn CoverGirl founda
tion. It was supposed to cover up things you wanted to hide. Like blemishes, blotches...bruises from car accidents you'd prefer concerned family members didn't know about.
"Mels?"
She didn't need to turn around to see what was behind her: Her mom, trim and small, younger looking than her age, would be sitting at the table across the way, the Caldwell Courier Journal open-faced next to a bowl of high-fiber bird food and a cup of coffee. Dark hair, streaked with gray, would be combed down into a neat, freshly trimmed cap, and the clothes would be casual, yet seem perfectly ironed.
Her mother was one of those tiny little women who always looked made up even without makeup. Like she had been born with a can of spray starch and a hairbrush under each arm.
But she was fragile. Like a kind, compassionate figurine.
The china shop to the bull Mels's father had been.
Very aware that the question was still out there, Mels poured. Sipped. Made busy work snagging a paper towel and wiping a counter that was clean and dry. "Oh, nothing--I slipped and fell. Knocked into the shower dial. It was so stupid."
There was a moment of quiet. "You got in late last night."
"I ended up at a friend's house."
"I thought you said it was a bar."
"I went over there after the bar."
"Oh. All right."
Mels stared out the window over the sink. With luck, her aunt would call at any moment, as the woman usually did, and there wouldn't be a need to lie about why she had to take a taxi into work.
The sounds of sipping and quiet crunching filled the kitchen, and Mels tried to think of something halfway regular to say. Weather. Sports--no, her mother wasn't into organized activities that centered around fields, balls or pucks of any kind. Books would do it--although, Mels didn't read anything other than crime statistics, and her mother was still on the Oprah's Book Club train even though the locomotive didn't have an engine or any tracks anymore.
God...times like this made her miss her father to the point where it hurt. The two of them had never had any awkwardness. Ever. They'd talked about the city, or his work as a cop, or school...or they'd not said a word--and it was cool either way. Her mother, on the other hand?
"So." Mels took another draw on her mug. "Any big plans for the day?"
Some kind of answer came back, but she didn't hear it because the urge to leave was too loud.
Finishing off the last of her black coffee--her mother took hers with cream and sugar--Mels put the mug in the dishwasher and braced herself.
"So I'll see you tonight," she said. "I won't be late. Promise."
Her mother's eyes rose to meet her own. That bowl full of wholesome goodness had little pink flowers on it, and the tablecloth had tiny yellow ones, and the wallpaper had larger blue ones.
Flowers everywhere.
"Are you all right?" her mom asked. "Do you need to go to the doctor?"
"It's just a bruise. Nothing special." She glanced out through the dining room. On the far side of the doily-laden table, past the milky white privacy curtain, a bright yellow Chevrolet pulled up. "Taxi's here. I left my car at the bar because I'd had two and a half glasses of wine."
"Oh, you could have taken mine into work."
"You'll need it." She looked to the horticultural calendar hanging on the wall, praying there was something there. "Today you have bridge at four."
"I could have gotten a ride. I still can, if you want to--"
"No, it's better this way. I can pick up my car and drive it home."
Crap. She'd just boxed herself in. The only way Fi-Fi was going anywhere was if she were on the back of a flatbed--the poor thing had been auto-evac'd to a local service station.
"Oh. All right."
As her mother fell silent, Mels wanted to apologize, but it was too hard to put the complicated sorry into words. Hell, maybe she just needed to move out. Constant exposure to all that self-sacrifice and kindness was a burden to bear, instead of a joy to be relished--because it never ended. There was always a suggestion, an offering, a how-about-this-way, a--
"I have to go. Thanks, though."
"All right."
"See you tonight."
Mels kissed the soft cheek that was presented, and left through the front door in a hurry. Outside, the air was fresh and lovely, the sun bright enough to promise a warm lunch hour.
Getting in the back of the cab, she said, "CCJ offices on Trade."
"You got it."
Heading into town, the taxi had shock absorbers to rival cement blocks, and all the seat padding of a hardwood floor, but she didn't care about the rough ride. Too much chaos in her brain to worry about her butt or her molars.
That man from the night before remained with her, sure as if he were sitting beside her.
It had been like that all night long.
Letting her head fall back, she closed her eyes and replayed the accident, double-checking, triple-checking that there was nothing she could have done to avoid hitting him. And then she got tied up in other things, like the way he had lain so still and watchful in that hospital bed.
Even injured, gravely so in some places, he'd still come across like...a predator.
A powerful male animal, wounded--
Okay, now she was really losing it. And maybe she needed to look closer at her dating life--which was nonexistent....
Too bad she couldn't shake the conviction that he'd been strangely hypnotic, and wasn't that tacky. What she should be concerned with was his health and well-being, and how likely he was to try to sue her for what little she had.
Instead, she lingered on the raspy sound of his voice, and the way he'd stared at her, as if every small thing about her had been a source of fascination and importance...
He'd been hurt a while ago, she thought. The scars at the side of his eye had healed up over time.
What had happened to him? What was his name...?
As she got mired in the land of Questions With No Answers, the taxi driver did his job with no muss, no fuss. Sixteen dollars, eighteen minutes, and a sore tailbone later, she was walking into the newsroom.
The place was already noisy, with people talking and rushing around, and the chaos calmed her nerves--in the same way that taking a yoga class made her jumpy.
Sitting down at her desk, she checked her voicemail, signed into her e-mail, and grabbed the mug she had been using since she'd inherited the desk a little over a year and half ago. Heading over to the communal kitchen, she had one of six coffeepots to choose from: None of them were decaf; three of them were just plain old Maxwell House; and the others were that stinky hazelnut crap or that femme-y macchiato-whatever-the-hell it was called.
Big whatever on the latter. If she wanted a damn caramel sundae, she'd get one for lunch. That stuff did not belong in a coffee mug.
As she poured her basic black, she thought about the mug's true owner, Beth Randall, the reporter who'd sat in that cubicle for...well, it must havc been just over two years. One afternoon, the woman had left and never come back. Mels had been sorry about the disappearance--not that she'd known her colleague all that well--and felt badly to finally get a dedicated spot to sit in under those circumstances.
She'd kept the mug for no particular reason. But now, as she took a sip from it, she realized it was in the hopes that the woman returned. Or at the very least, was okay.
Looked like she was surrounded by missing people.
Or at least it felt that way this morning. Especially when she thought of the man from the night before--the one who she was never going to see again, and couldn't seem to forget.
This was not his house.
As the taxi pulled over in front of a ranch in a modest neighborhood, Matthias knew he didn't live under its roof. Hadn't. Wouldn't.
"You gettin' out or not?"
Matthias met the driver's eyes in the rearview. "Gimme a minute."
"Meter's running."
Nodding, he got out and relied on his cane as he went up the
front walk, swinging his bad leg in a wide circle so he didn't have to bend his knee. Things were hardly Home Sweet Home: There was a branch down in the scrubby hedge that ran under the bay window. The lawn was scruffy. Weeds had sprouted in the gutters, reaching for the sun so high above.
The front door was locked, so he cupped his hands and looked into the windows on either side. Dust bunnies. Mismatched furniture. Sagging drapes.
There was a cheapo tin mailbox screwed into the bricks, and he opened the top. Circulars. A coupon book addressed to "Occupant." No bills, credit card applications, letters. The only other piece of mail was an AARP magazine that had the same name as that of the driver's license he'd been given.
Matthias rolled the mag up, shoved it into his windbreaker, and headed back to the cab. Not only was this not his residence, nobody lived here. Best guess was that the person had died within, say, four to six weeks--long enough so that the family had cleaned up the accounts payable issues, but before they emptied the place out to put it on the market.
Getting into the cab, he stared straight ahead.
"Where to now?"
With a groan, Matthias shifted over and got out his wallet. Sliding Mels Carmichael's business card free, he was struck by an overriding conviction that he shouldn't involve the woman.
Too dangerous.
"What'll it be, pal?"
But shit, he had to start somewhere. And his brain was like an Internet connection gone bad.
"Trade Street," he gritted out.
As they headed for the downtown area and got caught in a net of traffic, he stared into the other cars and saw people drinking coffee, talking to passengers, stopping at red lights, going on green. Totally foreign to him, he thought. The kind of life where you nine-to-five'd your way into a grave at the age of seventy-two was not how he'd lived.
So what was, he asked his dumb-ass gray matter. What the fuck was?
All he got back was a headache while he strained for an answer.
As the Caldwell Courier Journal facility came into view, he took out one of the ten twenties in the wallet. "Keep the change."
The cabdriver seemed more than happy to get rid of him.
Taking up res on the periphery of the front doors, Matthias loitered in the sunshine, being careful not to meet any stares--and there were a lot of them: For some reason, he tended to attract attention, usually from women--then again, the Florence Nightingale stuff was something the fairer sex was known for, and he did have scars on his face.