Immortal (Fallen Angels #6)(4)
Author: J.R. Ward

“Something’s burning.”

“Shoot!” Sissy lunged for the smoking pan and picked the thing up without a pot holder, burning her palm— “Goddamn it!”

From out of nowhere, that murderous rage made her want to destroy something: The stove. The kitchen. The whole house. Blinded by anger, she wanted to splash gasoline around the base of the wooden mansion and light everything on fire. She wanted to stand so close to the blaze her pores got tight and her eyelashes curled.

And maybe, just maybe, she wanted Jim to have to claw his way out to safety.

Big hands came to rest on her shoulders. “Sissy.”

She was so not up for some kind of parental pep talk. “I don’t need—”

“Jim is not your problem. Do you hear me?”

With a yank and a shove, she stepped away. “It doesn’t bother you that he’s distracted?”

Adrian stared down at her, that eye on the right positively opaque. “Oh, it does. Trust me.”

“So why don’t you do something about it! Talk to him or something—you’re close, right? Tell him to stop … doing what he’s doing. Maybe if he refocused, he’d start winning.” When there was no reaction, she cursed. “Don’t you care about what happens? Your best friend is up in that attic, dead because of—”

Adrian shoved his face into hers. “Stop right there.”

The tone in his voice shut her up.

“You and I?” he said. “We get along. We’re cool. But that doesn’t mean you get to talk about shit you don’t know about. You have problems with Jim? I get that more than you realize. You don’t appreciate him getting wound in the head about some chick? Join the fucking club. You’re worried about what happens next? Head to the end of a very, very long line. But watch your mouth about Eddie, ’cause that was before your time and it’s none of your damn business.”

For some reason, the fact that he was partially agreeing with her just pissed her off even more. “I gotta get out of here. I just … I gotta get some air. Make your own eggs—you can eat my share.”

Back in her real life, Sissy had never been much of a stomp-and-slammer. She’d been a good girl, the kind who had besties instead of boyfriends, was always the designated driver, and never, ever made a fuss about anything.

But death had cured her of all that.

She marched over to the door, ripped that thing open like she wanted to tear it off its hinges, and pounded her way outside. As she kick-shut those wood panels behind her, it occurred to her that she didn’t have anywhere to go. But that problem was solved as a glint of metal caught her eye.

The Harleys were parked inside the detached ancient garage, and she went for the one she’d used before. The keys were in the ignition—which would have been stupid except for the fact that this was an otherwise good neighborhood, and say what you wanted about Jim and Adrian, they were the kind of men who could get a bike back if it was stolen.

And not by calling the police.

Throwing a leg over the seat, she pumped the engine, tilted the weight so she could free the kickstand … and a second later she hit the gas and roared off, screaming down the drive past the old mansion’s flank, screeching out into the street and powering off.

With no helmet on her head, the wind roared past her ears and mixed with the engine’s din. Her sweatshirt offered little buffer between her skin and the cool morning, and would offer even less protection if she wiped out and hit the pavement.

But she was already dead.

So it wasn’t like she had to worry about pneumonia or dermabrasion.

Besides, who the hell cared?

Jim Heron came awake like he was shot out of a cannon, palming his forty, jacking upright, ready to pull the trig.

No targets. Just faded flowered wallpaper, the bed he was lying in, and two piles of laundry on the floor in the corner, one clean, one dirty.

For a split second, time spaghetti’d on him, no longer a function that was linear, but a fucked-up mess where the past twisted around the present. Was he looking for a rogue operative? A soldier who was in the wrong place at the wrong time? An assassin who’d come for him?

Or was this a morning from the second chapter in his life? Where a demon’s minions were after him? Maybe Devina, herself?

Or was that bitch assuming another mask where she looked like—

The roar of a Harley engine igniting outside his window snapped his head around. Up on his feet, he went over to the window and parted the thin curtains.

Down below, Sissy Barten was on Eddie’s bike, cranking gas into the engine, making that Harley talk. With quick efficiency, she freed up the kickstand and took off, blond hair streaming behind her in the spring sunlight.

His immediate instinct was to go after her, either on one of the other Harleys or by ghosting out and traveling on the wind. And he gave in to the impulse, yanking some jeans on, dragging a Hanes T-shirt over his head. He was shoving his socked feet into his combat boots when he stopped.

And pictured his enemy.

Devina was six feet of brunette sexpot—at least when she slipcovered herself in all that appealing flesh. Underneath the lie? She was a pinup only by Walking Dead standards. But in either garb, she had the focus of a laser sight, the smile of a cobra, and the sexual appetite of a frat boy on Molly.

In the last round of this war, he’d spent so much time worrying about Sissy that he’d made the wrong call about which soul was on deck. And lost a crucial win as a result.

He couldn’t afford to do that again.

The Creator had set up the conflict with very clear parameters: seven souls, seven shots for Jim to influence someone at a crossroads. If the person in play picked the righteous path? Angels won. If not, score one for Devina. Winner got all the souls of the quick and dead, and dominion over Heaven and Hell. The loser was game-over’d.

Pretty clear, right? Bullshit. In reality, the war wasn’t playing out along any neat and tidy rules, and the biggest deviation that screwed him where it hurt was that Devina wasn’t supposed to be down on the field. Technically, only he was allowed to interact with the souls—but when your enemy was a liar down to her black and evil core? All bets were off. Throughout the entire game, the demon had totally refused to color within the lines—easy to do when you had no sense of morality, and “fair play” was not in your vocabulary.

Shit … Sissy.

Jim scrubbed his face, and felt like a rope being pulled in two different directions.

As a former black ops soldier for the U.S. government, he was hardly the nurturing type. And yet, from the second he’d found that girl hanging upside down in the demon’s tub, her life ended so she could function as ADT for Devina’s precious mirror? He’d been strung up on her.