by J. R. Ward
Yeah, sure, it wouldn’t last. And when she came to, she was going to feel like hell. But in this electric moment, she didn’t care about any of that.
“Isaac—”
He backed off. The moment she said his name hoarsely, he not only moved away, he pulled out of the vortex.
Pacing around, he rubbed his short hair like he was trying to scrub his brain raw, and the physical distance gave her a clue about how she would feel in the aftermath if she ever were with him: very empty, vaguely nauseated, and definitely ashamed.
“That won’t happen again,” he said roughly.
As his pronouncement hung in the still air between them, she told herself that she was relieved she wouldn’t have to deal with the sex stuff.
Annnnnnnnnnnnnd . . . the throbbing between her thighs told her that was a bald-faced lie.
“I still want you to stay,” she said.
“You never give up, do you.”
“No. Never.” She thought of the number of times she’d tried to pull Daniel out of his tailspin. “Not ever.”
Isaac’s face was ancient as he looked across the kitchen at her, his frosty eyes nothing but pits of darkness. “Word to the wise. Letting go can be an important survival mechanism.”
“And sometimes it’s a moral failing.”
“Not if you’re being dragged behind a car. Or being pulled down a rat hole. Sometimes to save yourself, you have to get out.”
She knew they were getting close to his truth and she kept her voice as steady as she could. “What are you getting out of, Isaac. What are you saving yourself from?”
He just stared at her. And then . . . “Where’s your security system.”
The deflection was a disappointment, but the concession that he was staying was a win of sorts. And as she took him to the front of the house, she pulled herself together as best she could, even though her knees were loose and her skin overheated and her mind spinning.
There was a terrible familiarity to the way she felt, one that she refused to dwell on . . . but might well bring up to her dead brother when she saw him again. Daniel never spoke of the night he had died, or all the self-abuse that had gone on before that. Maybe, though . . . they needed to talk about everything.
“As I mentioned, this is just for show,” she said, sweeping a hand past the ADT pad that was mounted on the wall. “The real unit is in the back of my bedroom closet. Each window and every door has the ADT receivers, but the real system is secured by radio waves and infrared beams and copper plates. Just like yours.”
“Show me the connectors. And I want to see the motherboard. Please.”
Which would mean taking him upstairs.
As she glanced over at the carpeted steps, she found it hard to believe that she was wondering whether she could be trusted with him. . . .
That close to a bed.
What the hell was happening to her?
CHAPTER 15
As Isaac was led into a cozy library-type room, he knew this was where Grier spent her downtime. There were sections of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal in a wicker basket next to a stuffed chair, and the wide-screen TV on the far wall no doubt had CNBC or CNN or FOX News on it most nights.
Who sat here and watched with her? That brother of hers?
“See?” she said, pulling one of the Black Watch tartan drapes aside.
Isaac went over and leaned in—and the whiff of her perfume was precisely the kind of thing he didn’t need right now.
Forcing himself to focus on the tiny flashes of copper, he approved of what he was eyeing. Very current stuff.
Who the hell was her father?
Before he did something stupid, like touch her, he moved away, and as he wandered by the TV, he was entirely unsurprised by the collection of DVDs tucked into the shelves. Lot of foreign titles and serious movies he’d never heard of, much less seen. Then again, he hadn’t been to the cinema since the late eighties.
Last thing he knew, Bruce Willis was a cop desperately looking for a pair of shoes that fit, Arnold was a cyborg with sunglasses, and Steven Seagal had a real hairline.
“Will you take me to the motherboard,” he said, turning around to her.
The and into your bed part he left off. What a gentleman.
“Of course.”
Following her up the stairs, he gave her a wide berth—which was good in that he kept his hands to himself, and not so hot because his eyes had plenty to look at. Jesus, her hips had a way of making him grind his molars.
When they passed the second floor, he took a quick pause and snagged an impression of three bedrooms with open doors. The decorations were done in the same old-money routine as downstairs, but there was a cozy vibe to it all. Much more “family” than “hotel.”
He certainly hadn’t lived like this. He’d shared a room the size of her front hall with two of his brothers growing up. In XOps, he’d grabbed sleep where he could—usually sitting upright in a chair facing a door with a gun in his hand.
“I’m on the third floor,” she said from a number of steps up on the landing.
He nodded and got his ass in gear. It turned out she was actually the whole third floor. The master bedroom was a sprawl with its own sitting area, fireplace, and French doors that opened to what he guessed was a private terrace.
“In here.”
He tracked the sound of her voice, going over to the walk-in closet she’d disappeared into. The damn thing was as big as some people’s living rooms, with wall-to-wall creamy carpeting and legions of clothes lined up and hanging by category.
The air smelled like her perfume.
She was at the back, shifting aside a dozen or so serious-looking suits to reveal . . . a four-foot-high, three-foot-wide grate that appeared to be nothing more than an old-fashioned radiator cover. But what do you know, the thing slid back and revealed a crawl space.
Little click and the light came on.
She went in first and he was tight on her going into the cramped confines—and there it was.
Holy . . . shit.
As they knelt down side by side, he thought, Man, good thing he wasn’t a techie type or he’d be swooning. The setup was as sophisticated as it got—no little pad with ten numbers and off, stay, or away to choose from. This was a computer-linked system that monitored the various zones in the house on multiple levels. And if he was reading it right, the only way to get at the components was all the way up here, and disarming would be tricky.
Except . . . “I didn’t see you turn it off when we came in.”
She handed over something that looked like the key fob to a car. “The pad is calibrated to my thumbprint. I take this with me wherever I go, and the system’s engaged now.”
As he turned the thing over in his hand, she said, “Good enough?”
He flipped his eyes up to hers. “Good enough.”
Long moment. Too long for where they were.
Way too long for who they were.
“Anything else,” she said.
Yes. “No.”
Grier nodded and worked her way around to step out of the confines. After he emerged, they put the grate back and walked into her room—go fig, he couldn’t help but look at her bed. Big. Lot of duvets and pillows. On the far side, there was a small TV on top of a choice antique table, and a bookcase lined with precisely ordered DVDs.
He frowned and went over, even though it was none of his business—because he couldn’t possibly be seeing the titles right.
Pretty in Pink. Breakfast Club. Sixteen Candles. Die Hard. Under Siege.
Even he knew these.
“That’s my nighttime viewing,” Grier said, as she came across and straightened the thin boxes even though they were perfectly straight.
“Different from what you have downstairs.” And he found it hard to believe she was a poser who wanted to be all Jane Austen in public and Jerry Seinfeld here in her room.
She picked up When Harry Met Sally . . . and smoothed he
r hand over the autumn scene on the front. “I don’t sleep well and these help. It’s like . . . my brain goes back to the time when they came out. I see the cars . . . the supermarket scenes with cheaper prices . . . the clothes that used to be in style . . . hair that no one wears anymore. I go back to when I was the age I first saw them, back to when things were . . . simpler.” She laughed in an awkward rush. “Cinematic knockout drops, I’d guess you’d call it. It’s the only thing that works for me.”
Staring at her as she looked at Meg Ryan, he had such an image of her curled on her side, the blue flicker of the screen playing across her features, the trip into the past calming her nerves and slowing her brain down.
Did she have a lover to watch with her? he wondered. A boyfriend?
No ring, so he assumed she wasn’t married or engaged.
“What,” she said, tugging at her beautiful black dress. He cleared his throat, hating that he’d been caught staring. “Which shower do you want me to use.”
That made her smile. For the first time.
And yeah, sap that he was . . . his breath caught and his heart stopped.
Grier put the movie back in its slot. “More food first,” she said as she turned and led the way back downstairs.
Jim and his boys landed in the rear garden of a three-story brick house that both screamed old money and apologized for making any fuss at the same time. Everything about it, and its neighborhood, was refined and super-well cared for . . . and brick. For God’s sake, the whole zip code looked like the three little pigs had gone hog wild: brick houses, brick walls, brick walkways, brick lanes.
It was enough to make the Big Bad Wolf go iron lung.
Through plate-glass windows, a kitchen that was pretty damn spank spread out in all kinds of directions, and there was some kind of food thing going on at the counter—but no people. Stepping back, Jim looked not at the house, but through the house, closing his eyes and concentrating.
Yes, he could sense the pair of them . . . as well as something else. There was a . . . ripple . . . inside.
His lids flipped open and just as he lunged for the back door, Eddie caught him by the arm. Which, considering the guy’s strength, was like running into a parked car. “No, it’s not Devina. That’s a wayward soul.”
Jim frowned and focused his feelers on the disturbance. “Wayward?”
“It’s a soul that has been released from the body, but has yet to go to its destined eternity. It’s trapped here on earth.”
“A ghost.”
“Yeah.” Eddie slipped his backpack off his shoulders, his thick braid falling forward. “It’s hanging around, waiting to be free.”
“What keeps the thing here?”
“Unresolved business.”
“And you’re sure that’s what it is.” As the angel’s red eyes went rock-hard, Jim raised his hands. “Okay, okay. But can we go with calling them ‘ghosts’? That ‘wayward’ shit is straight-up granny-speak.”
“Agreed,” Adrian chimed in.
“Oh, for the love . . .” Eddie muttered. “You can call them Fred if it gets you off.”
“Deal.”
At that moment, Isaac and Grier walked into the kitchen. As the guy parked it on a stool, she resumed cooking for him and the tension between them was obvious . . . as was the attraction: The pair of them were playing eye tennis—each time one looked over, the other glanced away—and that blush on the woman’s cheeks sealed the deal on the ooh-la-la undertone.
Staring through the glass, Jim felt utterly ancient and apart. Guess now that he was an angel any dreams of ever getting married and doing the kid thing were dead and gone—to say nothing of dating anyone . . . although, Christ, when had he ever dated?
And he’d never been the marrying kind, so what the hell was he bitching about?
Besides, this was no Lifetime movie going down in RL on the far side of the glass: what he was staring at was a hunted man and a woman who was in over her head.
Hardly something to be envious of.
In fact, he wondered what in the hell the guy was thinking. Anyone who had worked with their old boss knew that collateral damage was a very real possibility in this scenario.
“Man, let’s just move in with them,” Adrian groaned. “Screw protective spells—I love a good omelet and I’m starved.”
Jim glanced over. “Seriously.”
“What? Gotta have plenty of bedrooms in this place.” Abruptly the angel’s voice grew deeper. “And I can partake of my extracurricular exercises discreetly.”
Yeah, and he wasn’t talking about basket weaving there. Read: sex with anonymous women. Sometimes with Eddie riding shotgun.
Jim had spent only one night with the pair of them, but he already knew what the drill was. Even though Ad had allowed himself to be used and abused by Devina at the end of the first match, it hadn’t taken him long to go trolling again. The guy was frickin’ obsessed with the females.
“Can you please focus?” Jim glanced over at Eddie. “So what can we do here—”
Adrian cut in with a growl. “Oh, yeah, she’s making him another one.”
“You can so drop that food-as-porn voice.”
“Hey, when I’m into something, I go with it.”
“Try learning to cook then—”
Eddie cleared his throat. “Right. So there’s a tradeoff to protecting this place—the stronger spells will flag the site for Devina.”
“She already knows,” Jim said quietly. “I will bet my balls that she’s already found him.”
“Still think we should lie low.”
“Agreed.”
Eddie reached out. “So give me your hand.”
As Jim offered his palm, he glanced at the pair inside. They seemed insulated from the hurricane swirling on their horizon, and he had the oddest urge to make it so they stayed that way—
“Shit,” he hissed, yanking his arm back. Looking down at the sting on his hand, he found a thick cut down his life line, one that was oozing . . . blood . . . or something like it.
There was a sheen to the welling red flow, like iridescent car paint in sunlight. Funny, he hadn’t noticed anything strange back at the funeral home—then again he’d been a little distracted by his old body’s imitation of a sandbag on that slab.
Eddie resheathed his crystal dagger. “Go around and mark each of the doors. Keep in mind the image of the two of them and see them safe and at peace, protected, calm. Same as before—the stronger your image is, the better it works. It’ll form a kind of emotional barometer within the house—so that if there’s a major disturbance, you’ll feel it. It’s a low-level spell and will get you here fast if something happens—and it shouldn’t get Devina’s attention. ’Course, it won’t keep her out of there, but you can get here in the blink of an eye if she breaches the barrier.”
With his hand dripping, Jim went up the steps to the back door, keeping himself cloaked so that he would appear to Isaac and his lady friend as nothing but a passing shadow. Pressing his palm to the cold painted panels, he focused on the two of them, catching them at a moment when their eyes locked and held. Then he lowered his lids and concentrated on nothing but that image . . .
The world went away, everything from the breeze on his face to the creak of Adrian’s leather jacket to the distant sounds of traffic just disappearing . . . and then his body went as well, his weight lifting off his feet, even as he stayed on the ground.
There was nothing for him, around him, or about him but the picture in his mind.
And it was from out of the vacuum that his power boiled up.
An immense groundswell of energy channeled into the blank space he’d created and without understanding it, he knew precisely what to do with the force, sending it around the house, giving part of it away only to find that even more streamed in.
Dropping his arm, he stepped back—
Jim went statue. The shimmer in his blood was on the door . . . and spreading in all directions in waves, cover
ing the panels and the jambs and moving onto the brick. Upward and out to the sides it surged, gaining ground, taking over.
Sealing the house up.
“Not bad for a first try,” he muttered, getting ready to go around to the front.
As he turned, he paused. The two angels were looking at him as if he were a stranger.
“What.” He glanced over his shoulder. The shimmery red wave was still spreading, going up and over the roofline. “Sure as shit looks like it worked.”
Eddie cleared his throat. “Ah, yeah. You could say that.”
“To the front—”
“Not necessary,” Eddie said. “You’ve covered the house.”
As Adrian muttered something under his breath and shook his head, Jim thought, What the hell?
“You two look like someone pissed on your boots. You want to tell me the problem.” Pause. Cue response . . . which didn’t come. “Fine. Whatever.”
“We should go now,” Eddie said as he put his knife back in the pack. “With the spell in place, we’re not a value-add. She’s got beads on all of us.”
“How?”
The two angels looked at each other. Ad was the one who answered. “We’ve all been with her. If you know what I mean.”
Jim narrowed his eyes on Eddie, but the angel just busied himelf with his damn luggage.
Well, what do you know. Devina got around.
Putting the thought out of his mind, Jim walked through the garden’s back gate and went around to the front entrance. After making note of the number and street, he took to the air in spite of an impulse to stay put.
He was satisfied with his little sealant spell, however—plus Dog had been back at the hotel for quite a while, and Jim needed to take him out. Maybe he’d get them both a pizza. . . .
While Adrian and Eddie no doubt enjoyed a different kind of pie.
CHAPTER 16
As Isaac was having his second omelet—and wondering how in the hell he was going to get through the night—Grier went to get his room ready. When they were both finished, she took him up to what was clearly the men’s guest bedroom suite: The walls and drapes were done in navy blue and chocolate brown and there were leather chairs and a lot of leather-bound books.