Immortal (Fallen Angels #6)(24)
Author: J.R. Ward

“And that still did not stop him,” Colin said.

Devina glowered. “I seriously thought the bubonic plague was going to take him out.”

“That was you?” Ad asked.

“I had to do something.”

“Okay, okay, so what’s our problem?” Sissy demanded, like she was trying to refocus the group.

Adrian looked up at the ceiling and could only imagine the Creator’s reaction. “The Big Guy’s going to be pissed if we do this. There’s gonna be repercussions. Fuck the plague for real—He’ll come after us, and shit is gonna get ugly.”

With Eddie gone and a cock that no longer worked, it wasn’t like he had much to “live” for, but that didn’t mean he was happy to volunteer for suffering.

“You ready for that?” he asked Colin. “I’ve already been through the whole wrath-of-God a couple of times, and I’m way down the totem pole compared to you.”

Before the archangel could respond, Devina spoke up. “It’s going to be fine.”

Ad laughed. “You don’t have that much power, demon.”

“I’ll tell Him it’s my idea.” She stared across at Ad, then Colin. “The Creator begot me on purpose to provide chaos to His universe—otherwise utopia would exist and there would be no need for Heaven. I am His balance, the darkness to the sunshine, the bitter cold to warmth, the scorching heat to temperance. I am the disease to health and the poverty to wealth. I am the cheater who stands side by side with the honorable. This is my nature, His gift to me and the world. He cannot and will not punish what He Himself has conjured up with deliberation. If He does? Then He has failed.”

In a quick series of calculations, Ad tested the theory, looking for holes, searching for ways in which Devina’s “helpful suggestion” could come back and bite him and Colin hard. He could find nothing: Devina was a lying, cheating slut, but you could always, always put your money on her self-interest.

And out of everything in this world and the next, she wanted Jim Heron. She was clearly willing to do anything required to get him back, and she was smart enough to know that she wasn’t going to be able to shift blame at the last minute. The Creator knew her too well to buy that shit.

The Creator would, however, believe it was her idea, and Devina might just have a point. And if she didn’t? What the fuck did he care. It wasn’t his ass on the line.

“You’re prepared to go to Him,” Ad said, “after it’s through. Assuming it works.”

“I am. As soon as it’s over—and I know what He’s going to say. As if He and I haven’t been through these conversations before?”

Good point. She’d been fucking shit up on the earth for how long?

“Okay, I’m in,” Ad announced.

“Aye,” Colin said. “Myself as well.”

Sissy spoke up. “Anything I can do, I’ll help, too.”

Devina’s black eyes flashed. “Then let’s get my man back.”

Chapter Eleven

“EeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEE-eeeeeeeeEEEEEEEeeeeeEEEEEEEumumum—away—”

As nobody else was around to rock out of tune with him, Jim leaned his head back and kept yelling at the top of his lungs, “Uh-weema-way, uh-weema-way, uh-weema-way…” Left foot. Right foot. Left foot. Right foot. “In the jungle … the mighty jungle…”

He was a really fucking bad singer. Worse even than Adrian had been back in the beginning—before the angel had come clean about the fact that far from being tone-deaf, the bastard could actually give a choirboy a run for his money on the Hallelujah Chorus. Jim, on the other hand, was the real deal when it came to being the anti-American Idol.

His repertoire also sucked ass. He’d been drafted into the XOps system shortly after he’d murdered the rapists who had killed his mother—so it wasn’t like he’d had a typical late-eighties high school experience steeped in Van Halen dances and AC/DC delivered into the ears by a Sony Walkman. He did know the words to “Jingle Bells,” but that reminded him of his mother, so it was a no-go. He’d already run through “Happy Birthday” a couple of times. Next up after this one? He was weighing the pros and cons of either that thing you were supposed to sing on New Year’s Eve or the Twix commercial.

Talk about needing a break.

“EeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEeeeeEEEEEEEeeeeeeeee-uh-umum-away…”

He’d tried flat-out yelling Nigel’s name for how long? But he’d had to give that up—not that his vocal stylings were fixing the sand problem, but the songs kept him going better than just the name.

“…darling, don’t fear”—a spasm of coughing cut the verse off—“my darling…”

Shit, his voice was drying up.

Gray, powdery ground. Relentless dusty wind. A never-ending horizon where the sky was one with everything else. Jesus Christ, this brought new meaning to the word hell, but as long as he didn’t sit down, as long as he didn’t let the cold whip his legs out from under him, as long as he kept going …

Yeah, what, he thought. What then.

It was impossible not to wonder how many of the souls before him had motivated themselves into exactly this kind of aimless amble. And in all the distance he’d covered, he hadn’t seen one goddamn sign of life … or Nigel.

To keep himself from going completely insane, he pictured the only thing that could bring him back from the brink: his Sissy. Her long blond hair. Her eyes that reminded him of the blue snapdragons his mother had grown around their farmhouse. Her voice that had this freaky way of grounding him and sending him flying at the same time. Her clean scent and the mole on the side of her neck and the fact that she had a wonky fingernail on the pinkie of her left hand.

He pictured the way she tended to fiddle with the collar of whatever shirt she was wearing, as if maybe she’d forced herself to stop chewing her lip or the quick of her nails and needed to burn off the twitch.

He remembered how straight her two front teeth were, and how crooked her bottom six were.

When he thought about her, it was as if he recalled every breath she had ever drawn and expelled, even before he’d known she existed.

Great. After all these years, he finally grew a romantic bone in his body … and his girl was on the far side of the moon for all he could get to her—

Oh, come on, what was he going on about? Even if she were walking side by side with him? It wasn’t like that was the way things were going to go for them.