Immortal (Fallen Angels #6)(83)
Author: J.R. Ward

He put his kit back together, popped the door, and entered a concrete-and-steel stairwell that had mood lighting and smelled like clay—

With a sudden burst of enthusiasm, the knife leaped away from him and clattered down the steps, making the turns around the landings in a sloppy way, banging into the walls, rattling over the straightaways. He followed at a dead run, keeping up the pace.

They didn’t have far to go.

The basement.

Of course.

Chapter Forty-seven

As Sissy led the angels into the parlor, her heart was going a mile a minute. The idea that Jim was out there and maybe fighting with Devina already was enough to give her palpitations. That they didn’t know where he was?

It was enough to make her nauseous.

“The book’s over there,” she said, pointing to the mantel.

Eddie crossed the bare floor and took the book into his hands, flipping through the pages. For some reason, he apparently could read it and not be evil—at least, she assumed that was the case.

“These words,” he said, “were written using the semen of her minions. And if I remember—yeah, there we are. The list from Hell, literally.”

“What does this have to do with finding Jim?” Sissy asked.

“He’s going to go after her mirror first before he attacks her. If he takes the mirror, Devina won’t be able to escape down to Hell and hide. He’ll have a better chance of killing her without it. Ad, gimme your knife?”

Ad was front and center with the crystal weapon, and Eddie took it and put the book down on the floor. Closing the cover, he dug the sharp tip into the old leather, making a circular hole that went into the pages themselves; then with a quick slice and a hiss, he cut his own palm. Making a fist, he held the thing over the hole that he’d made, the silver blood dripping down into the pages, but not pooling.

Each drop was absorbed into the ancient tome, disappearing.

In a soft voice, the angel began to speak words that ran together, the language nothing that Sissy understood.

“What’s he doing?” she whispered as she crouched down.

Ad nodded in approval. “He’s using his will to turn the book into a locator.”

“The inventory list,” she breathed.

“That’s right. Devina keeps her collection and her mirror together. This goes right, we’ll find the latter because the book will help us find the former. I’ll be right back.”

It was a powerful sight, she thought as she was left alone with Eddie. And something she’d like to paint: the fallen angel with his thick braid hanging over his shoulder and his massive body curled above the ancient book, his fist extended with a shimmering path flowing down, linking the two together.

Ad had just returned as Eddie stopped and seemed to need a moment to reconnect with reality.

Eddie cleared his throat. Shook his head. “Do we have a—”

“Right here,” Ad said, holding something out.

“You read my mind.”

It was a compass, one of those old-fashioned Swiss Army jobs, and Eddie took the green and silver dial and fit it into the circle he’d dug in the book. Then all three of them leaned in. The red arrow went haywire, spinning all around before falling into a series of seizures, flipping this way and that.

Until it finally settled on a northeast direction.

“Looks like we got it,” Ad muttered. “Assuming the damn thing doesn’t just want to go to a Barnes and Noble.”

Sissy jumped up. “Let’s go.”

Except Eddie stayed where he was, staring down at the compass.

“What’s wrong?” Sissy asked.

The angel’s red eyes lifted, focusing on her, but also on Ad—like he wanted to be sure that both of them heard him. “Nobody breaks the mirror. Do you understand? If you shatter that glass, you end up in a million pieces, too.”

Sissy frowned. “Does Jim know this?”

“Yes, but I’m not sure he’ll remember. And that’s why we have to get to him first.”

Holy Mary, mother of OCD.

As Jim stepped from the stairwell into the basement proper, and his knife buddy went clattering off to join its friends, he was momentarily stunned even though he’d seen Devina’s collection before: In a dimly lit, vaguely musty space that seemed big as a football field, hundreds of bureaus were scattered around, facing in all directions. There was no order to them, no rhyme or reason to their placement, their style, their age.

So Devina didn’t know he was in here yet.

Where were the clocks and the knives? he wondered, searching out the vast space. Had to be here somewhere or Fido the Ginsu wouldn’t have run off like that.

Mirror, mirror, on the wall … where the fuck are you.

He started forward, heading away from the elevators, because if he were Devina, he’d put his most precious thing as far away from the egress/ingress as he could get it.

He’d gone about ten yards when he pivoted around and decided to give himself a little backup.

Working fast, he started pulling out drawers, and dumping their contents on the floor, creating piles of metal buttons and earrings and watches and signet rings. Glasses with metal rims and the locks to suitcases and car keys and coins and all manner of metal ephemera hit the bare concrete and danced a little, like they were happy to be freed.

Then he turned back and—

Ding!

Ninety-nine percent of his body froze in place. The one percent that didn’t unsheathed one of his two crystal daggers as the elevator doors opened.

Whoever it was couldn’t be Devina, unless she—

“What the fuck!” he barked.

Eddie came out first. Adrian was last. Sissy was in the motherfucking middle.

Jim’s rage went mushroom-cloud. “What the fuck are you bringing her—”

Sissy put her hands up as she walked forward. “Jim, you can’t do this.”

He ignored her, his grip tightening on the weapon as part of him wanted nothing more than to kill the two criminal idiots who’d apparently thought it was a great idea to bring his woman along for the ride. The only thing that stopped him from attacking? The SOBs were the ones who were going to have to take her the fuck out of here.

“Jim, listen to me.” Sissy got up in his face, throwing her body in the way. “You’re the soul. Do you hear me? You’re the soul—and you can’t do this. This is your crossroads, if you try to kill her—”

He pushed her out of the way and went for Eddie, grabbing onto the guy’s jacket with his free hand and angling the blade right to that thick neck. “You get her out of here. Now.”