Immortal (Fallen Angels #6)(56)
Author: J.R. Ward

The headlights came on automatically, but the engine was relatively quiet—especially as she coasted out into the street, did a slow K-turn, and accelerated cautiously. In the rearview mirror, she double-checked the third floor.

Still no lights. And Ad was not a vampire who could see in the dark.

Thank God.

As she headed off, she knew where she was going. The hotel Devina was at was the super-fancy one downtown where the senior prom had been held. The trouble was, she wasn’t sure which exit it was off the highway. There were, like, half a dozen that dumped out into those dense city blocks full of skyscrapers.

But she was going to frickin’ find the thing.

Out of the neighborhood. Onto a surface road that took her to the Northway. And then she was speeding in the direction of Caldwell’s twin bridges.

Curling her hands on the steering wheel, her head played tennis with itself, batting contradictions back and forth: The way he touched her. What Devina said. The look in his eyes as they’d had sex. What Devina said. The sense of belonging when they were together. What Devina said.

It was like having the Williams sisters on her mental court, the opposite sides slamming balls back and forth, neither giving an inch. On some level, she couldn’t believe she was doing this, going downtown in the middle of a war for humanity’s future, just to see whether her “boyfriend” or “fuck buddy” or whatever the hell they were to each other was cheating on her with someone else.

Then again, she’d wanted normal and this was it; this precise drama happened to regular people who hadn’t done the sacrificial-virgin thing and ended up in Hell and been rescued only to go and watch their own funeral. There were millions of women across the globe who had to deal with this.

It was just … for frick’s sake … why couldn’t the “normal” she’d gotten have been more like a good steak dinner, or a night where, instead of worrying about life and death or goddamn portals to Purgatory, she watched reruns of The Big Bang Theory and ate Oreo ice cream out of the carton?

She got off I-87 one exit early and became trapped in the maze of one-ways. A few left turns later, however, and she was pulling up to the front of the hotel. Three flags waved above its grand entrance: an American, one for the state of New York, and a third with the place’s logo in maroon and gold on it.

There were no valets out front, but, because it was … one sixteen in the morning … there was a metered space directly across from the revolving doors.

She got out, locked the Explorer, and straightened her clothes. Although, come on, like the sweatshirt and yoga pants were going to look any less schlubby? Or be any closer to the chain mail she wished she were wearing?

It was like she was about to go to war or something.

Jogging across the four-lane street, she took the red-carpeted stairs two at a time and shoved her way into the marble lobby. The first thing she saw was the biggest flower arrangement on the planet. The thing was nearly a full story high, and it was not made of silk: the lilies and roses released a delicate fragrance that reminded her of Eddie.

“Are you Miss Barten?”

Her sneaker let out a squeak as she pivoted toward the marble-topped bays where guests checked in. There was a lone man in a black suit standing behind one of the computer stations, his hair slicked back from his forehead, his shirt so blindingly white it made her think of bleached teeth.

“Yes.”

“Please go right up.” He smiled at her like he was much, much older than she was—even though he had to be only in his mid-twenties. “The elevators are on the left. You can take any one of them.”

“Thanks.”

The ride all the way to the penthouse took a while, and she really could have done without the four walls of mirrors. The last thing she wanted to see was her face and wondered whether Jim avoided his reflection when he came here, too. Or had he no conscience? Well, whatever, she certainly wasn’t enjoying her own view: She’d been under some delusion, as she’d made it out of the house apparently without waking Ad, and gotten down here okay, that she was in full-on handle-it mode. Instead, even in her peripheral vision, her eyes looked crazed in her pale face, and her hands were shaking so badly, the sleeves of her sweatshirt were vibrating.

Ding!

The doors slid open and she stepped out onto lush carpet. Crystal sconces shed gentle butter-yellow light over walls that had a sheen of wealth to them, and real paintings were hung at intervals in both directions. There were a couple of doors to choose from, and she went over and read one of the plaques. FRAMINGHAM LOUNGE. Another one farther down read, STAFF ONLY.

She found the PENTHOUSE sign all the way at the far end.

There was a little doorbell button under the sign—but before she went to push it, the door opened of its own volition, as if a draft or, more likely, some unseen hand was at work.

And there it was.

Exactly what she had come to see, but hoped not to.

In a seating arrangement in the center of a room with a lot of glass windows, in a chair that faced the view, Devina was buck-ass naked, her long brunette hair spilling down nearly to the floor … because her head was thrown back in ecstasy.

Bathed in candlelight, Jim was looming over her, his naked body poised above his bowed arms as he kissed her.

Sissy must have made a noise. A curse. A something—because he suddenly looked up at her. Instantly, the red-hot passion in his face was replaced with shock and then panic.

“Sissy!” he barked. And then he had the colossal nerve to leap back from the woman, demon, whatever she was like he hadn’t just been caught red-handed.

He was fully aroused.

Between one blink and the next, the rage inside of her leaped free and she was no longer in control.

As she stepped over the threshold, Jim was holding his hands out like he wanted to stop her from coming into the penthouse. Then he was backing up as if looking for his clothes. The whole time, he was talking to her, his mouth moving.

She didn’t hear a thing.

But her sight worked just fine: She saw everything about him and everything about Devina, too. For her part, the demon just sat back in that low-slung chair, her hands lying on the armrests, her hooded eyes following every move that Sissy made.

Then again, what was there to say, really.

There was, however, a knife. On the coffee table by the chair. With an eight-inch blade. Absently, she noted that it was like the fancy one her dad had gotten for Christmas two years ago, the one he treated like it was a work of art. Funny, the Henckels was totally out of place in the room, looking like something that had been left behind by a caterer.