Immortal (Fallen Angels #6)(19)
Author: J.R. Ward

“Fuck!”

Jim jumped back and went into a defensive crouch. The “statue” was moving: The arm on the left shifted upward as if there were someone trapped in there or … that actually was someone.

Gray particles filigreed off the elbow as that limb rose up, as if the person were trying to reach him for help.

It wasn’t Nigel, but come on, like he wasn’t going to do something here?

Jim crouched down and put his own hand out.

The instant contact was made the entity dissolved into a loose pile of that powdery ground cover, the wind rushing in and blowing it away as if that were the task of the gust.

Within moments, there was no sign that anything had been there at all, the slate wiped clean.

Warning bells went off in his head, and he took a gander at his fingers, his palms, his forearms, his body. He had on what he’d been wearing when he’d crossed over, just a white Hanes T-shirt and a pair of jeans. Things had changed—or were changing—though. The white was not as bright as it had been, like the shirt was in a Tide detergent ad showing what not to do with your laundry. And the blue was fading, too.

He stared down at where the man had been.

Then he resumed his stride, cupping his hands and yelling into the wind, “Nigel! Niiiiiigel, yo, buddy!”

His voice didn’t carry far, as if the dust in the air were consuming the volume, eating it alive.

“This was a great plan, asshole,” he muttered as he came up to another “boulder.”

This one was too worn-down to see any identifying anything. The head was nothing but a bump on top of the mound, the body beneath it arranged in the same fashion as the one before. Or at least that was what it seemed.

He was about to turn away when the structure collapsed, the head falling inward into the triangulation of the body, the wind whipping up and claiming the ash, sweeping it away once more.

Jim coughed to relieve his dry throat, and wondered if the laws of food and water applied in this landscape.

Trudging along, he began to feel a chill in the air. “Nigel! Nigel…!”

Think, Jim. Fucking think. What could he leverage to keep himself “alive.” And where the fuck was that Englishman?

Serious concerns about the timing of everything dogged him. Chronologically speaking, Nigel had killed himself two and a half days ago, max. But that was in earth hours. So how long did the guy have before he turned into one of those mounds? Before Jim himself did? The style of clothing of that first man suggested two hundred years or more had passed, and that was good news on one level, because it meant they had some time. Unless everyone’s experience here was different?

Man, he could have used some stereo instructions on this place—and of course, that thought brought up all kinds of images of Sissy bent over that beat-up old book, her straight blond hair falling forward, her frown of concentration suggesting she was milking every nuance of meaning out of the words.

As he trudged along, calling out the archangel’s name, he tried to tell himself that the reason he was lingering on the Sissy shit was because, like any road left untraveled, it was easy to build up a scenario of perfection. Without having actually been with her, his brain was free to dream up all kinds of utopia—and it was illogical to torture himself with could’ve-beens that were, in fact, weren’ts.

Besides, it wasn’t like he had any track record with grand romances. His sex life was built on a solid foundation of anonymous fucking. Not only had he never been in love; finding a wife or a mother for some children had been so far down his bucket list, it hadn’t even made it on the page—

Okay, clearly the war had done his nut in, and his version of crazy was this illusion of having some kind of destiny with Sissy.

“Niiiiiiiigel,” he belted out. “Where are you, you sonofabitch…”

Looking out over the vast barren landscape, he was struck by the reality that having all directional options open was a unique form of being trapped. And then there was the other happy ass-slapper that Nigel was the anti–Bear Grylls. That scone-fancying, Gatsby-wearing Englishman wasn’t going to have a clue how to survive in any environment that didn’t include a croquet set, plenty of sherry, and a quartet playing Bach.

Man, he should have thought this through better.

“Niiiiiiiigel!”

Chapter Nine

As lightning flashed and showed off all kinds of minions on the attack, Adrian wished like hell he hadn’t lost vision in one of his eyes. Depth perception was a bitch for him now, and he needed it more than ever as he faced off against the demon’s collection of oily, formless fighters.

The fucking things had always given him the creeps, and that was when he’d just been by his little lonesome with no one else to worry about but himself. With Sissy behind him and Colin the Crackpot as backup?

Happy Monday—

Feeling a tug on his waist, he twisted around—and discovered that Sissy had just unsheathed his backup dagger. “What the hell are you doing?” he yelled over the thunder.

“I’m going to defend us, too.” She palmed the hilt as if there were a possibility, however remote, that she might have a clue how to use the thing. And not for making a salad.

But they didn’t need a hero in this situation.

Ad rolled his eyes. “Look, just stay behind us—”

The impact hit him in the face, the sweeping punch ringing the shit out of his bell. Which was the thing with minions: They had Rubber Man’s stretch and Tyson’s follow-through—and with his bad leg, he couldn’t take a hit like he used to. As his weight transferred to the bad side of things, he listed and the world tilted. Throwing out a hand—

Sissy was there to catch him, jacking her body against his like she was trying to keep a tree from falling. And Colin stepped up in front, throwing out a buffering spell that bounced the minion off in the opposite direction.

More lightning strobe lit the room. Another two minions stepped right up where the first had been.

“Not good,” Ad muttered. “Really not good.”

With a curse, Colin braced his body and put both palms forward, sending out shock wave after shock wave, holding off the attack as still more minions pushed in.

Within moments, they were blocked into the corner completely, an army of Devina’s shadows pressing in so tightly together that they became a wall of dense, oily blackness.

Sissy groaned against him, pushing her face into his pecs, but she didn’t let go of him, and she didn’t drop the dagger. Shit, she was probably remembering them from her time down below.