Immortal (Fallen Angels #6)(15)
Author: J.R. Ward

With the angel slumping down to the floor, Jim and the aggressor ping-ponged around the parlor, ricocheting off the walls as they fought for control of that crystal weapon—and Sissy was not about to sit around and wait to see who got tired first. Lunging out of their way, she looked around for something, anything, to help fight Colin off.

She grabbed the first thing she came to, a brass candlestick that weighed as much as a crowbar. The beeswax wick stick went airborne as she picked the thing up, lifted it over her head, and ran across—

Talk about tap dancing. The two men were spinning around with such force, she had to track them, waiting for the one without the shirt to come into range—and not move out of the way before she could nail him. If she guessed wrong? She was going to knock Jim out.

Bingo. Just as Colin came around, she planted her feet, and with every ounce of strength she had, she brought the metal mass across the back of his dark head.

Light exploded everywhere, blinding her and throwing her back just like Adrian—except her trajectory was going to take her right into one of the double-hung windows. With a messy trip-and-fall, she managed to redirect herself off that course—but even as she was cushioned by a swath of heavy velvet draping, the impact stopped her heart and drove the breath out of her lungs.

She didn’t lose consciousness, though—so as she went into her own slump, she got to watch the man with the crystal knife lose his footing and go into a stumble of his own, the injury to his head knocking him waaaaay off his game. It was all Jim needed. With a vicious yank, he tore the dagger out of the other man’s hand and kicked that hard torso, separating the two with force.

Later, Sissy would endlessly replay the sequence of what happened next, running the reel backward and forward as if there were some other outcome lurking in between the nanoseconds, some other path that could be chosen if only she could find the way to make a splice and insert new film.

But of course, that was a no-go.

As Colin hit the floor, the man looked up at Jim with pure hatred in his red-rimmed eyes. “You killed him!”

“What the fuck—”

“Your hand was on that dagger!”

“—is wrong with you!”

The two of them went back and forth at a scream, their male voices thundering throughout the house, Jim’s accent American, the other man’s British.

“I lost him because of you!”

“I know!” Jim yelled.

That shut Colin up. And the man stayed quiet as Jim continued to roar, “And I’m going to get him back!”

A nasty laugh cracked like a whip. “Oh, you are, mate? Precisely how do you intend to do that.”

Jim looked across at her. Glanced at Adrian. “You’re going to have to help me out. Somehow—”

Ad threw out his arms as if trying to stop a car crash. “Jim! No, don’t—”

Jim stared back at Sissy. Opened his mouth like he was going to say something … but instead of speaking, he turned the crystal dagger on himself, pointing the sharp tip at his stomach and extending his arms as far away from himself as they could get.

“No!” Sissy screamed as she jumped up.

At the last second, he changed his mind. But not to stop. Instead, he changed angles, dropping his left arm, bringing up the right …

… and with a vicious slash, sliced his own throat open.

“Noooooooooo!” Sissy lunged across the carpet as the knife fell in slow motion from his lax hand.

Jim fell, too, as blood poured out of his neck—at least, she assumed it was blood, as it was silver, not red.

Oh, God, it had to be blood soaking the front of that plain white T-shirt he wore.

The sound of his knees hitting the floor was like a clap of thunder, and she reached him just as he sat back on his heels. His mouth was open, gaping, clicking as he tried to breathe through the geyser.

“Jim! Jim!” She reached up to press her hands to the self-created wound, but what a waste of time. Even if she’d had yards and yards of surgical gauze, there was no stemming this.

No saving him.

His blue stare locked on hers as he began to list to the side, his massive torso giving in to gravity, his immortal life slipping away right before her very eyes.

Tears speared into her vision as a frantic not now! not ever! clogged up her brain: As much as she had been livid at him this morning, she was now terrified of the thought that she had lost him forever.

A chance not taken.

A door unopened.

A destiny unrealized.

And that loss felt worse than everything that had happened to her. Even Hell itself.

“Don’t leave me, just stay with me, don’t leave me…”

His mouth kept moving, and she realized he wasn’t trying to breathe—he was trying to say something to her.

“What?” she croaked. “What are you…”

Those lips, stained with silver, moved more and more slowly, the pupils in those eyes expanding as if they were trying to compensate for a lack of light.

Sissy knew the instant he died. It wasn’t when his mouth stopped or when the eyes rolled back. It was when the scent of a bouquet of flowers filled the air, choking the inside of her nose and thickening the back of her throat.

It was just as they had told her in Sunday school when she’d been young: When a saint died, you smelled flowers.

Jim … the savior … was gone.

Chapter Seven

Collections were a good thing.

Of course, hers was probably a little out of control, Devina thought as she stepped free of her office building’s elevator.

And how fucking great was that.

Stretching out before her, in a basement that was nearly the size of a football field, rows and rows of antique bureaus filled with a millennium of taking souls were hidden and safe. It was the kind of sight that made her take a deep breath for two reasons: one, they were still where she’d left them; and two, they were hers, all hers.

Her high heels made a clipping noise as she strode over the bare concrete floor. From time to time she paused, put her little bag with the box of new Loubous in it down, and pulled out a drawer. Whether it was a cluster of pocket watches with their gold chains, or a tangle of nineteenth-century spectacles, or a jangle of keys, every single object was cataloged in her mind—she could remember who had owned it, how she’d gotten it from them, and the exact circumstance when she had taken over their soul and put them into her wall. But this wasn’t just a happy trip down memory lane. Anytime she touched a metal button or an earring or a keepsake coin, she could feel the person’s very essence.