Rapture (Fallen Angels #4)(23)
Author: J.R. Ward

He gave her back the receiver. “No one’s home.”

Then again, what other response was there: Wake up on the guy’s grave, and he expected Heron to be answering a call? Long reach from six feet under to AT&T.

“Maybe he’s on his way?”

“Maybe.” Matthias stared at the girl for a moment. “Thank you so much. I really mean that.”

“You want some coffee as you wait?”

“I’d better go do a drive-by on the house. People react to tragedy in…funny ways.”

She nodded gravely. “I’m really sorry.”

And she was. A perfect stranger was honestly sorry for whatever he was going through.

He immediately thought of Mels, who’d also been so willing to help him.

Nice people. Good people. And his faulty memory said he didn’t belong in their company.

“Thank you,” he said gruffly before limping out.

The forty-caliber handgun in Jim’s right palm weighed thirty-two ounces, with ten bullets in the mag and one in the pipe.

He kept the weapon down at his side, by his thigh, as he walked out of the garage. After the mess in the shower, Adrian had left to go get some air and some food, taking his Harley and not his helmet. Dog was safely upstairs, resting on the bed in a patch of sunlight. Jim was on guard duty.

Can’t you see? She’s in me—and she’s taking over.

Fuck.

At least he had an outlet: The good thing about the garage was that it was all the way at the back of a farmhouse property—and the white main house with its porch and its redbrick chimney had been empty since he’d started renting here.

No one was going to see. But that wasn’t good enough.

Shoving his free hand into his combats, he took out a suppressor. The silencer added ten ounces in weight to the autoloader and changed the balance, but he was used to the weapon like that.

Now, no one would hear, either.

Standing on the loose pea gravel of the drive, he took a drag of his cigarette and then held the thing in his left hand. Focusing on a branch that was thirty feet from the ground, he lifted his weapon and locked in on the one-inch-thick stretch of oak.

Breathing calmly, he closed his eyes and pictured Devina’s face.

Crack!

Thanks to the suppressor, there was no noise from the gun, no pop, just the kick against his palm, and the impact on the wood.

Crack!

The trigger, like the grip and the barrel, was not only an extension of his arm, but his body, and he didn’t need his eyes to readjust the trajectory. He knew exactly where the lead was going.

Crack!

Calm. Centered. Breathing in the belly, not the chest. Unmoving, except for his forefinger and then his forearm muscles as they absorbed the subtle recoil of the gun.

The impact of the final bullet was softer, but then again, there wasn’t much wood left.

He opened his eyes just as the branch went into free fall, bouncing down through the arms of its brethren, delayed, but not stopped from the hard ground.

Putting his Marlboro back between his teeth, he crushed the fallen pine needles and the scratchy grass under his combat boots as he went over and picked the thing up. Clean cut, relatively speaking. Nothing like what a saw would have done, but considering the distance and the means, it was good enough—

“You are an excellent shot.”

The haughty English accent coming from behind him made Jim want to keep squeezing off bullets. “Nigel.”

“Have I caught you at an inopportune moment?”

“I still have seven bullets left. You decide.”

“Devina has been reprimanded.” As Jim spun around and narrowed his eyes on the aristocratic archangel, Nigel nodded. “I wanted you to know that. I thought it was rather important for you to know that.”

“Worried that I’m going off the rails?”

“But of course.”

Jim had to smile. “You can be a straight shooter when it suits you. So what’s your Maker done to my enemy?”

“She’s your opponent—”

“Enemy.”

Nigel clasped his hands behind his back and went on a quaint little walkabout, his lean figure dressed in the kind of hand-tailored suit Jim was totally unfamiliar with, and fully prepared to stay that way.

“What’s the matter, boss,” Jim muttered. “Cat got your tongue?”

The archangel shot over a look that might have dropped him dead if he’d been alive in the conventional sense. “You are not the only one with a temper, and I should remind you to watch your tone and words with me.”

Jim tucked the weapon into the small of his back. “Fine. Let’s drop the small talk. What can I do for you?”

“Nothing. I simply thought it would ease you to know that the Maker has taken action. I told you to let the demon overstep the boundaries. I told you to wait for the response, and it has come.”

“What did He do to her?”

“The wins and losses that you both have sustained are permanent. There is naught that He nor any of us can do about where the flags have gone—they are immutable. But He hath decreed that her actions cannot lay unaddressed—”

“Wait, I don’t get it. If what Devina did affected the outcome of a round, then her win should be yanked.”

“That is not how this contest is set up. The wins are…” The archangel looked to the heavens. “The parallel would be personal property, I suppose.”

“Mine?”

“In a manner of speaking, I would say yes.”

“So if she f**ked off the rules, and it changed the result, the Maker should give me back what’s rightfully mine. And while we’re at it, I’d like to point out that if I’d known who the damn soul had been when it came to Matthias, I wouldn’t have been focused on the wrong man.”

“And that has been redressed.”

“How?”

In the far distance, on the other side of the meadow, a car turned in from the main road and started on the lane that went past the farmhouse.

Shit. Visitors were so not welcome—and the yellow color suggested it was a cab.

The thing didn’t stop at the main residence.

Nigel cocked a brow. “I believe it shall be self-evident.”

On that oh-so-clear note, his boss disappeared.

“Thanks, buddy,” Jim muttered. “Big help. As f**king usual.”

Ducking around the corner, Jim nailed his shoulder blades to the aluminum siding. The gun didn’t stay in his waistband. Once again in his hand, he was prepared to shoot.