Immortal (Fallen Angels #6)(21)
Author: J.R. Ward

Would it work? He wasn’t sure if he’d even know over here. If Devina took over all of the quick and the dead … did that include the lost souls of Purgatory?

If Jim prevailed, nothing would change.

If the demon did, perhaps this horrible, dusty void would seem like paradise.

Trudging on, he became aware of a chill in the air and wrapped his loose, flagging robe closer about.

It was not long before structured thought deserted him and he was left with only emotional despair.

He missed Colin with every inhale of the dusty air. And as his eyes began to water, he thought at first it was but the particles carried upon the wind. Alas, no. It was from mourning his love.

Sweeping his fingers across his cheek, he looked down at the wetness. Within moments, the crystalline tear was covered with dust—or … had it become dust?

The wind strengthened abruptly and seemed to concentrate its efforts upon that which he regarded with a frown. And then his fingertip was cleaned, the tear claimed.

Alarmed, he looked up to the sky that was the same color as the ground. Then peered behind himself.

Nothing but those boulders … which he feared were not made of rock after all.

Heart pounding, teeth beginning to chatter, he continued onward with no direction. He had a companion, however. His grief was as another person traveling with him, an entity so tremendous and painful, it was separate from him and yet grafted to his very being.

He could only pray that his noble sacrifice had been worth all this.

If not, he was going to be consumed with a bitterness that might well turn him evil.

Chapter Ten

The hard floor bit into Devina’s bony knees as she fell before her beloved and bowed over him.

Even in his immortal death, Jim was looking away from her, his head lolled to the opposite side, his open, sightless eyes trained across the old-fashioned Victorian parlor.

“Jim…” she rasped.

As heartbreaking as it was to see him from outside, up close it was even harder. His face still had all its color and his cheek was still warm as she brushed it. He appeared to be merely sleeping—and he was going to stay this way, the sweet bouquet fragrance that wafted around him the only evidence of the passing.

Well, that and all the no-moving.

As her tears began to flow in earnest, clear drops changed to blood-red and fell down her cratered cheeks onto the backs of her hideous hands.

She was so full of grief, not only had she lost the ability to keep her mask of flesh in place, she didn’t give a shit that she was without it.

“Jim, don’t leave me,” she moaned. But it was too late for that. The law of unintended consequences had come home to roost: Nigel had killed himself because of Jim. And Colin, in a fit of rage, killed Jim …

She was so going to slaughter that fucking archangel. As soon as she had the strength to stand up, she was going to unleash the wrath of ages upon him, flaying his skin from his body, digging his eyes out with her own claws, castrating him with her teeth. And then she was going to get really serious.

“My darling love—”

“Devina!”

The sound of her name above the din of her minions barely registered as she rearranged Jim into a better position, pulling his upper body into her lap, turning his head to face her. Ah, there. Now he was staring at her.

The crystal dagger that had been gripped in his right hand fell to the floor with a clatter and she glanced at the thing. As its silver-covered blade caught a burst of lightning, she heard from over in the corner:

“Devina, we can get him back with your help!”

It was Adrian’s voice—and she was more than prepared to ignore it when the scene she’d witnessed from the window flashed before her sunken eyes: Jim sprawled on the floor, the idiot bitch Sissy cradling him like she was in a Nicholas Sparks movie, Adrian across the room making like a throw pillow on the sofa … and Colin, the archangel, on his ass, staring at Jim like something unthinkable had just happened.

“Devina! We need to get him back!”

She was beyond uninterested in whatever Ad was screaming at her … except that expression on the archangel’s face nagged at her. Colin’s war-minded nature had long commanded her respect, kind of in the way anyone would get careful when a loaded gun was cocked at their head: You either moved carefully around the damn thing or vital shit started to leak.

That archangel was never one to hesitate in conflict, and never the kind who was surprised when he prevailed in an attack.

So why had he been staring at Jim like that?

“Devina! You stupid cunt!”

Reaching across Jim’s heavy chest, she picked the crystal blade up off the carpet and brought it to her nose. One deep breath through the Swiss cheese of her rotted sinuses and she knew a horrific truth.

Colin might have come here to kill Jim, but that was not what had gone down.

Jim’s own blood was on the weapon.

He’d taken his own—

“No!” Devina’s heart pounded. “You fucking didn’t!”

If he’d committed suicide, he’d gone to Purgatory … which was the one place, win or lose, she couldn’t get to. Jim was gone to her forever if he—

Devina twisted around, her exposed spinal cord cracking like popcorn. “Be gone!” she commanded her servants. “Be gone!”

The swarm of oily black minions disappeared faster than a gasp. And in the wake of their departure, Colin’s bracing spell had nothing to push against, so his energy exploded into the room, rattling the windows and creating a gust that blew her Gollum hair back. The archangel’s own body was affected, too, his weight tipping forward so that he had to catch himself in a tucked roll that brought him right to her. Naturally, he was on his feet in a defensive stance a split second later.

Across the way, Adrian went into a slump, his body landing badly on the rug, all arms and legs going everywhere. Sissy was the only one of the three who remained exactly where she was, a crystal dagger in her hand, her arm up and ready to stab. The girl’s eyes were wide as headlights, though—no doubt from her first fight, and maybe, probably, because of what Devina looked like.

But again, the demon didn’t care about appearances. No more than somebody who, having been in a motorcycle accident, gave a shit that ambulance people had to strip them naked to save their leg.

“What did he do?” Devina heard herself ask. Gone was the voice of the seductress, the luscious, affected American pronunciation lost in favor of a sandpaper rasp that had the accent of the ancient.