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 f**king 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.
8
“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 foundation. 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?