A small voice in him, one that was nearly buried, pointed out that it wasn’t amusing at all. That it was one more piece of shrapnel in him, another nail in a coffin that was nearly complete, thanks to her having killed Eddie.
Ad didn’t care, though. He was dead whether he was up on the Earth dicking around with the war, or down here getting a blow job that got him nowhere.
Didn’t matter.
“Suck harder,” Adrian drawled as he gripped her head and thrust into her mouth. “Let me feel you on me.”
The warehouse district in Caldwell was exactly that: warehouses. In a district.
No big revelation there.
And yet, as Jim slowed his Harley down in the middle of a long block, he saw the area through new eyes: Desolate, really, even though a lot of the facilities had been renovated and turned into pricey condos.
Killing the bike’s engine, he twisted around. “You okay back there?”
Sissy nodded and dismounted, shucking her helmet and shaking out her hair. As she looked around, he studied her. Built long and thin, she hardly seemed the type who would prefer the cold wind in her face and nothing but an engine and two tires between her body and the road … but she had asked to take the hog.
And he had said yes.
Rising off the seat, he kicked out the stand and leaned the bike to the side.
“What are we doing here?” she asked as she glanced over at him.
Man, he hated being back on this street, in front of this particular building. “The entrance is around the corner.”
As he led the way, he could feel her following him, and he found himself wanting to move her in beside him. Maybe put an arm around her shoulder or hold her hand—he just didn’t want her to be alone in this, and shit knew that could happen even if you were with someone.
But he let that impulse go as they came up to a set of industrial-size doors.
Willing the things open, he held them wide so she could pass by and go up the short flight of stairs.
Suppose they could have just walked through. He really wanted to be a gentleman with her, though.
After going through the second set of security doors, he gave her a moment in the stark “lobby” to look around in case that jogged her memory.
“I don’t think I’ve ever been here before, have I?” she said.
Devina probably hadn’t brought her through the main entrance, no. “The cargo elevator’s over here.”
The lift was big enough to park a car in, and as he punched the button that had a “5” on it, he reminded himself that coming here had been his bright idea.
Jesus, he hoped he was doing the right thing.
Ding. Ding. Ding. Annnnnd…
Ding.
After he threw the manual release, the doors split wide at their midline, and the hall outside still carried the paint smell of new construction.
As was typical of these warehouse overhauls, the decor was deliberately rustic, the hall dark and gloomy as if on purpose, the brick walls still sporting their original, sloppy mortar job, the wooden floors burdened with the choppy, stained patina of heavy use.
Sissy moved forward, beelining for the nickel-plated aluminum door that let in to where the demon had previously kept her collection, her mirror, and herself.
Which explained why there were seven dead bolt locks on the thing.
Placing a hand on the portal, Sissy closed her eyes and leaned in until her forehead touched the metal.
“I can feel … something …” She was frowning so hard, he caught the expression even from where he was standing.
“You don’t have to go inside.”
“Yes, I do.”
With that, she gripped the handle, pushed down—and it opened, clearly because the last person here had f**ked up and not locked things behind them when they’d left.
Empty. Space.
Last time he’d been here, it had looked like something out of a flea market. Shit had been crammed in everywhere: bureaus crowding the varnished floors, clocks covering the walls, the kitchen layered in knives. Now it was nothing but a bowling alley without lanes and pins.
Sissy’s borrowed running shoes made no sound as she walked around, arms crossed, head down.
She ended up at the bathroom.
The door was open, the gray marble flooring the color of a thunderstorm, the white accents bright as snow. As she stepped across the threshold, his reflex was to grab her and bring her back.
Closing his eyes, Jim saw blood everywhere, flowing down her pale skin, coating her blond hair, turning the porcelain tub red.
“I remember…”
Her voice was so quiet, it barely cut into his reliving the nightmare—but it was enough to snap him out of the replay. Walking over, his footsteps were not like hers: His combat boots sounded out loud and proud, and he wanted it that way. He wanted to disturb the stillness and the emptiness, wanted to break through reality and invade the past, changing it, altering its course, taking innocence back.
But of course, that wasn’t going to happen.
As he closed in on that bathroom, he remembered the door, that f**king door that he’d opened and…
Pulling his brain back from that abyss, he wondered whether Devina had rented the loft? Owned it? The place didn’t seem to be listed for resale, but it was empty.
Knowing her, she’d bought it before moving in and was determined to keep it. She hated losing things that were hers.
Now he was in the bathroom, too.
All the mess had been cleaned up as if it had never been, the milky light from the smoked windows across the way penetrating the space, pulling out soft shadows.
Sissy knelt down beside the tub. Running a hand up and down the porcelain, she shook her head. “Here … there was something here.”
When he didn’t reply, she twisted around and looked up at him. “Wasn’t there.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
Up above the Earth, past the clouds and the sky, farther still away from the atmosphere, even more distant than the galaxy, the Milky Way, the universe … the archangel Albert was sitting down to tea in a grove not far from the Manse of Souls.
In truth, he was not hungry a’tall.
“Bertie, my dear friend, whate’er ails you?”
Looking up across the dainty sandwiches and the silver tea service, he met the archangel Byron’s eyes. Behind rose-colored glasses, they were grave, and that was the saddest commentary on the status of the game. Even sadder, somehow, than the fact that there were only two flags flying on the castle’s parapet, no longer three: Byron was the optimist among the four of them, always believing in a kind and just destiny for the quick and the dead … and the angels.