Immortal (Fallen Angels #6)(69)
Author: J.R. Ward

Eddie leaned around in his seat. “The closer we get to where the infection entry happened, the more successful we’re gonna be.”

Her eyes flipped to the rearview mirror. Jim was staring at her from behind the wheel, his blue eyes remote—but it was funny. She could read him now. He was viciously angry and trying not to show it … and that made her love him even more.

He nodded. Once.

“Okay,” she said, pushing open her door.

Her hand went to her stomach. Already, the skin was beginning to burn—and she didn’t need to lift her sweatshirt to check to see what it was. She already knew. Those cuts in her skin, the symbols that the demon had carved into her flesh as part of whatever ritual had been performed on her, were back, activated by the proximity to where she’d been killed.

The horrible scars had done this before when Jim had taken her here, in hopes of helping her understand what had happened to her.

Guess this was proof she had something in her still, huh.

The trip up to the demon’s former loft was a blur. Or maybe she was deliberately blocking out all the cultivated-rustic, faux-distressed-style decor as well as the fact that those angels were magically getting through any door that was locked.

Good thing, because there were seven dead bolts on the loft entrance they were after.

After those were sprung one by one, she walked into the vast, open space—and that was when she realized they’d all gone invisi: There were no echoes of footsteps, no rustling of those plastic Hannaford bags, not even the sound of Adrian breathing hard from having dragged himself up the stairs.

She stopped dead as she looked over to the far corner and saw the open door to the gray marble bathroom.

Something was pressed into her hand. A blue carton of Morton Salt.

“Come on,” Jim said. “Help me.”

It was exactly the kind of diversion she needed, and she followed his instructions to the letter, going over to the nearest wall and starting to pour out a thin line of sodium that was supposed to go all the way around the space.

“I’ll do the bathroom,” he told her after he watched her for a bit.

The hiss of the falling granules sounded like a snake, and no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t get the white rush to fall in a perfectly straight line.

Further, the loft was so large, she needed two whole things of the stuff.

Just as she was finishing up, the scent of something clean and fresh brought her head around. Eddie and Jim had lit up what looked like cigars, and were exhaling pale smoke as they walked around her line. And inside the bathroom, she could hear liquids being poured into the sink and sloshed around.

Heading over to that horrible room and leaning in, she had to rub her stomach as the burning sensation got even more intense. Adrian was pouring witch hazel and hydrogen peroxide into the basin, empty bottles of white vinegar and crushed plastic lemon juice containers littering the sink next to him.

Something glinted on the closed toilet seat and she frowned. “Are those…”

“Guns?” He glanced over his shoulder. “Yeah. They are.”

Sissy approached slowly, as if the things might decide to think on their own—something that seemed reasonable considering the barrels of both were pointed at her. God, they were unlike any kind of pistol she’d ever seen, the entire grip and body of the weapon made of glass.

They were like the daggers, she thought.

And they had stoppers on them.

“Water pistols?” she asked.

“Special water.” Submerging his hand into the brine in the sink, Ad began to stir it slowly in circles. Words left his lips, spoken so quickly and softly they were unintelligible to her.

“What are you saying?”

Abruptly, another scent reached her nose … it was that of a fresh field, as bright and clean and vivid as something that could be seen. And that was when he stopped, took both guns, and submerged them, bubbles rising up as their bellies were filled.

“Okay, now we need to get set up in here.” Eddie came over to her. “’Scuse me.”

As she stepped aside, the angel took out a compass and held the thing up. Walking around the bathroom tile, he stopped and took squat votive candles out of his pockets.

“No,” Jim said. “In the tub. We need to do it where she was … you know.”

“It’ll be easier here.”

“Tub faces north.”

“I need to walk around her.”

“I’m doing it.”

Eddie gritted his teeth like he was determined not to say the first thing that came to his mind. “Jim. You’re too close to all this.”

“I’m doing it, and she’s getting in that fucking tub.”

On that note, Jim popped the top on some more Morton and made a circle around the room, stretching over the tub to make sure a line went around the far edge against the marble wall. The only place he didn’t hit was the windowsill.

By the time he was done, Eddie had placed candles at the four compass points along the lip of the tub. He lit them with a Bic lighter that she’d seen Jim use and then he took one of the crystal guns for himself and gave the other to Adrian.

Jim puffed his cigar a couple of more times, the air becoming saturated with the smell of ocean breezes, spring sunshine, fresh rain. And then he dropped the stub to the marble floor and crushed it with his heavy boot.

“Let me help you in there.” Putting out a hand for her, he looked at Eddie. “She’s not getting naked.”

Naked?

Eddie nodded. “That’s okay.”

Oh, God, it was time, she thought.

Gathering her courage, Sissy accepted Jim’s help—needed it, too. As she put one leg and then the other over the high side of the tub, she started shaking all over. But that wasn’t the real problem. Her stomach burned so badly, she had to curl in on herself.

“It hurts,” she moaned.

“What hurts?” Eddie leaned in. “What’s going on?”

Jim just shook his head. “You don’t have to tell him—”

“The symbols,” the other angel said. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

She nodded as Jim looked furious—although not at his comrade.

“It’s all right,” Eddie said, laying a hand on her shoulder. “We’re going to take care of that. Now lie down.”

Sissy glanced at Jim, and as he nodded at her, she stretched out on all the hard, cold porcelain. Linking her hands over her stomach, she thought the tub was kind of like her coffin—and decided, if she came out on the other side of this in one piece, she was going to take showers for the rest of her immortal life.