Fallen Angels 03 - Envy (28 page)

Pul ing the chair out from the desk, she oriented the thing in the corner so that she could see both the front door and the door that she’d come in through from the garage; then she dragged a side table over. In the closet, in a fireproof safe, there were three other guns and plenty of rounds of ammunition, and she palmed another autoloader, put in a clip, and flicked the safety off.

Sitting down with her back to the wal , she reached over for the cordless receiver to her landline and placed it on the table with the extra gun, keeping her cel phone in her pocket in case she needed to move fast.

Someone wanted her?

Fine. They could just come on in and see what kind of welcome they got.

D
owntown, in the marble lobby of the bank Jim had broken into, Adrian was losing blood and getting light-headed, but he refused to pass out.

Wasn’t going to happen.

Over in a shaft of light that beamed in from outside, Jim put Eddie down gently on the hard, polished floor. The angel was stil tucked into that tight bal , his huge body in a fetal position on his side, his dark braid snaking out like a rope.

“Can we get you on your back, buddy? See what’s going on?” Jim said. Not questions—more like a warning to Eddie that more movement was coming up. And as the guy was eased over, the cursing was good to hear. It meant the big bastard was stil breathing.

Except he stayed curled up around his bel y. And his face was . . . not right. His normal y darker-hued skin had faded to the color of snow, and his eyes were squeezed shut so tight that his features were distorted.

There was blood on his mouth, staining his lips red.

Blood . . . was coming out of his mouth.

Adrian started to pant, his fists curling in, sweat breaking out al over his body. “You’re gonna be okay, Eddie. It’s gonna be—”

“Ease yourself for me,” Jim said. “I know it hurts like a bitch, but we’ve got to see.”

“—okay. It’s gonna be okay—”

“Oh, shit,” Jim whispered.

Oh . . . shit . . . was right. The blood didn’t just stain or leak from underneath where Eddie was holding his gut . . . it streamed out in pulses.

Jim ripped off his wet leather coat, wadded the thing up, and pushed Eddie’s slippery, glossy red hands out of the way. Then he just froze.

Somehow that harpy’s knife had penetrated Eddie’s intestinal tract and then streaked to the side, slicing a hole long enough and deep enough that the loopy anatomy was exposed. But that wasn’t the worst part: given the amount of blood coming from the injury, clearly one of the larger veins or arteries had been severed.

And that was what was going to kil him.

Jim shook himself and put the knot of jacket right on the wound. “Can you hold this for me, buddy?”

Eddie made an attempt to bring up his hands, but they moved only an inch or two.

Jim looked over. “Can he die?”

Adrian shook his head as his legs went numb. “I don’t know.”

Bul shit. He knew the answer. He just couldn’t say it.

“Fucking hel .” Jim leaned in toward Eddie’s face. “Buddy, is there anything you can tel me?”

Adrian didn’t so much get down as fal to his knees. Taking his best friend’s hand, he was horrified at how cold it was. Cold and wet from the blood and the rain.

“Eddie . . . Eddie, look at me,” Jim was saying.

This wasn’t right. This heroic fighter, this warrior of the ages, couldn’t be done in by a half-assed harpy with a knife. Eddie was blaze-of-glory material, a take-out-an-army-of-minions-on-his-way-to-the-exit kind of guy. Not this quiet leaching—and not tonight. . . .

Eddie let out a gasp, his big body jerking, his palm squeezing Adrian’s.

“I’m here. . . .” Ad said r en as he scrubbed his eyes with the back of his free hand. “I’m not going anywhere. You’re not alone . . .”

Holy motherfucking shit. They were losing him.

And this was the inexplicable at work. As angels, they were and were not alive; they at once existed and were not bound by the flesh; they were immortal, but very capable of losing the slice of life they had been granted.

“Eddie, fucking hel . . . don’t go. . . . You can fight this—” He looked up at Jim. “Do something!”

Jim cursed and glanced around, but come on—they were in a bank lobby, not a hospital. Besides, it wasn’t as if the savior could grab a needle and thread and start suturing, could he?

Except then Jim closed his eyes and settled back on the floor, crossing his legs Indian style and going utterly calm. Just as Ad was ready to scream that now was not the time for a fucking meditation, the guy started to glow: from head to foot, a pure white light began to emanate from his head, body and hands.

A moment later, the savior reached forward . . . and placed his palms on the big, barreled chest of—

Eddie’s torso bucked hard, as if he’d been hit with those cardiac paddles humans used, and then he sucked in a breath. Instantly, his red eyes blinked open . . . and focused on Adrian.

Feeling like a pussy for crying, Ad did another sweep of the eyes. “Hey.” He had to clear his throat. “You gotta hang on and fight this. Heal yourself. Just use what Jim’s giving you—”

Eddie shook his head a little and opened his mouth. Al that came out was a groan.

“—hang on. Come on, man, just—”

“Listen . . . to me . . .” Ad went absolutely stil ; Eddie’s voice was so weak, it didn’t carry far. “You need . . . to stay . . . with Jim . . .”

“No. No fucking way. You are not leaving—”

“Stay . . . with Jim . . . do not—” He struggled for another breath. “Stay with Jim.”

“It’s not supposed to end like this! I’m the one who’s supposed to go first—”

Eddie dragged his arm up and put his forefinger on Ad’s lips, silencing him. “You be . . . smart . . . for once . . . okay? Promise me.”

Adrian started to rock back and forth, his eyes flooding to the point where his vision blurred.

“Promise . . . on your honor . . .”

“No. I won’t. Fuck you! You’re not leaving me!”

The angel’s lids slowly started shutting. “
Eddie! Fucking Eddie! Don’t you fucking die on me! Fuck you!
”

As the echoes of the outburst faded, Eddie’s breathing got more labored, his mouth stretching wide as if his jaw hoped that would help. And in the terrifying, silent moments that fol owed, Ad’s heart hammered faster and faster, sure as if his boy’s were slowing down.

Edward Lucifer Blackhawk died two breaths later.

It wasn’t the abrupt lack of movement in the ribs or the way the body went lax or the fact that the hand in his lost what little grip it had had.

It was the scent of spring blooms that wafted up into the stil air of the bank.

drian locked a grip on the front of Jim’s shirt. “You can bring him back. Bring him back—for fuck’s sake—put your . . . hands . . . back on him—”

For some reason, he couldn’t speak anymore after that.

And then he couldn’t see.

Momentarily confused, he looked around, thinking a choking, stinging fog had rol ed in.

Oh, wait.

He was sobbing like a little bitch.

Not even pretending to give a shit, he grabbed Eddie around the chest and hauled him up, cradling to his heart the fal en angel who had been with him every step of the way on earth and in purgatory for centuries. And as he held him, the weight grew lighter in his arms, even as the vacated body’s inches and feet stayed the same.

The essence of Eddie had moved on.

Adrian burrowed his face into that thick neck and rocked them back and forth, back and forth . . . back and forth. . . .

“Don’t leave me . . . don’t . . . oh, God, Eddie . . .” Adrian wasn’t sure how many minutes or hours passed, except even in his distraught state, he became aware that something had changed.

Glancing up over Eddie’s head, he saw the savior . . . and had to blink a couple of times to make sure the picture made sense.

Jim Heron was in a crouch, teeth bared, huge body straining. His eyes were locked on Adrian and Eddie, and an unholy black glow emanated out of them, the buffering waves of evil pulsating through the bouqueted air.

It was vengeance and wrath and rage upright and walking. It was the promise of hel on earth. It was everything that Devina was . . . in the form and feature of the savior.

Adrian was strangely soothed by the show. Calmed. Centered.

He was not alone in feeling violated and stolen from.

He was not by himself as he went forward.

The path he would wear out in getting that demon for this would have two sets of footprints, not one—

At that moment, Jim opened his mouth and let out a roar that was louder than an airplane taking off, and the ripping sound was fol owed by a great explosion:

The glass windows of the bank lobby, al hundred feet of them, blew out at once, showering the street in front with a glittering snowfal of glass shards.

U
p in heaven, Nigel bolted out of his bed of satins and silks. He hadn’t been at rest—he couldn’t seem to close his eyes without Colin beside him—but waking or slumbering, the vision that came to him would have shocked him into alert no matter the circumstance.

With shaking hands, he drew his robe on over his nakedness. Edward—oh, dearest, stoic Edward.

He had been lost. Just now and down below.

Oh, this was a terrible turn of events. An awful destabilization.

How could this have happened?

Indeed, the conception that one of those two warriors could take a fal was something he had not contemplated in any of his planning: He’d sent the fal en angels to help Jim because they were hard and reslatnt and so very proficient at defending the good that they so often downplayed in themselves.

And out of the two of them, Eddie was supposed to survive: he was the prudent and smart one, who balanced his electric, eclectic, out-of-control comrade.

But destiny had corkscrewed on al of them.

“Damn it, damn it . . . damn it . . .”

And there was no bringing Edward back—at least not in any fashion that Nigel could affect: Resurrection was up to the Creator, and the last time an angel had been returned had been . . . never.

Nigel patted his face with a linen handkerchief. He had wagered both Edward and Adrian, thrown them like dice—and now Adrian, the volatile one, was shipwrecked without his compass, his anchor, his captain. And Jim, who already had a distraction, was worse than on his own. He was going to have to look after the other angel.

This was ruinous.

And a fine maneuver on the demon’s part—and yet how had it happened? Edward was always aware. What could have distracted him from his instincts?

Going over to his tea bar, Nigel set about warming the kettle. His hands were shaking as he thought about what he had wrought. Edward had been safely living in the nonsequestered part of this place that Nigel o’ersaw—he’d been waiting to be used, true, and thril ed to have been final y forgiven for breaking the rules and saving Adrian al those years ago. But stil .

A fine male. Now he was gone.

It was not to have been thus.

You are not so powerful as you think, Nigel.

Bracing his hands on the marble-topped bombé chest, he could hardly bear the weight on his heart. If he had not sprung them both from their respective purgatories, this would not have happened.

And he had been so arrogantly certain of his choice.

What had he done . . .?

Standing there, with no one behind him and no one in front of him, alone with his bad thoughts and the burden of his deeds lying heavily within his ribs, he thought of Adrian. Alone. In pain. In the war.

As Nigel struggled for breath he did not need, there was only one entity to turn to in this god-awful solitude. And the fact that Colin was not here, and sadder, that Nigel could not go to the other archangel, made him mourn the state Adrian was in. To have lost your other half was worse than death.

It was torture. Although it was instructive . . .

In the passing course of al Nigel’s faux days and faux nights, in the endless rotation of his pretend meals and his fake croquet games, within the construct of al this self-imposed structure that he engineered to keep him and his archangels from going mad in the infinity they existed in, he had never bent to another’s wil . It was not in his nature do to so.

And yet Colin had a part of him.

And unlike Adrian, he could go to his other half, seeking succor in the midst of this fear and loneliness and regret.

Adrian would never have that again: Barring a miracle that would be impossible to grant, he would be separate e’ermore from that other part of himself.

You are not so powerful as you think, Nigel.

When the shril whistle of the pot broke through the tent, he left the water to carry on, his feet fleet as he took off out of his private quarters and crossed the grounds in a streak of robe.

Per the cycles he set and commanded, night had fal en like a cape of velvet o’er the landscape. Up ahead, flamed torches burned along the battlements and turrets of the castle, and it was toward the flickering glow that he ran over the grass.

Edward was lost.

Colin was here.

And there was too much lawn between them.

Fol owing the manse’s wal s, he came to the western-most corner of the fortification and looped to the right. Off in the distance, Colin’s tent was set against the tree line, the squat, low-hung fixture made from heavy woolen tarps supported by squat poles. Unlike Nigel’s private sanctuary, it was smal and modest. No silks. No satins. No luxurious accoutrements : The archangel bathed in the rushing stream behind and slept not on a bedding platform, but a cot. One blanket. No pil ows. Only books for amusement.

Al of this was why Nigel had insisted that they share his quarters, the other archangel having essential y moved in ages ago.

In fact, as he came up to the tent, Nigel realized he had never spent a “night” herein. It had always been Colin who transplanted himself.