Fallen Angels 04 - Rapture (65 page)

Ignoring the signaling, she stayed where she was, even her OCD symptoms held at bay by a crushing sense of defeat.

What was she going to do—

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” She glared up at the distant circle of gloom at the very top of her well. “Will you give it a rest, Heron? I don’t want to see you.”

The signal only got louder, more insistent.

Maybe something was wrong?

How fun would that be.

Abruptly, she changed into her suit of flesh, the one that he had so enjoyed ejaculating into the other evening. Her hair was perfect, as always, but she checked it with her hands anyway.

Staying right where she was, she allowed him entrance, his presence
electrifying her the moment he got in range and appeared in his physical form.

Interesting … there was no triumph in his face, no ha-ha!, no macho swagger thanks to his victory.

He stood before her, unbowed, but not shitting on her parade, either.

Devina narrowed her eyes. “You haven’t come to gloat?”

“I wouldn’t waste my time on that.”

No, he probably wouldn’t. She would have, though—guess that part of him took after Nigel’s side.

“So why are you here?” She hopped off the table and walked in a slow circle around him. “I’m not in the mood to fuck.”

“Neither am I.”

“So …?”

“I’m here to strike a deal.”

She laughed in his face—considered spitting in it, too, for that matter. “We’ve done that once already, and in case you haven’t forgotten, you didn’t keep your side of the bargain.”

“I will now.”

“How do I know that—and who says I’m interested.”

“You’re interested.”

She stopped in front of the table and put her hand on it in an effort to remind him of how she’d had him there. “I doubt it.”

The angel brought his arm out from behind his back, and in his hand, on a short pole … was a victory flag.

Devina’s brows lifted. “Taken up sewing, have you.”

He waved the thing idly. “I have something you need. You have something I want.”

The demon stopped breathing—even though she didn’t require the inhale/exhale thing to survive. Was he actually suggesting … he would
give
her one of his wins?

Well, it was in the rules, she thought. At least technically. That
victory was his property … and she supposed that he could assign it to her, if he so chose.

“Does Nigel know what you’re doing?” she said softly.

“I’m not talking about him. This is between you and me.”

Ah, so the archangel had thrown a fit—or didn’t know yet.

And if this worked, it would make the score two to two, instead of one to three. Whole different ball game.

The demon started to smile. “Tell me, my love … just what is it you want?”

Even though she knew.

Well, well, well, wasn’t the game really going to get interesting now. And it looked as if her therapist had been right: It was possible, with enough exposure, to rewire one’s brain—or somebody else’s—to produce a given reaction.

All that hair color might have been worth it.

Just like the L’Oréal ad said.

Devina slinked her way over to her lover, her sex blooming in the tense quiet. “Tell me, Jim, and I’ll think about it. But I would like to hear you say the words.”

It was a while before he answered her.

And then he spoke, loud and clear. “I want Sissy.”

Three weeks later
…

“Are you ready?”

As Mels nodded, she squinted into the noonday sun. Putting her hand up to shield her eyes, she said, “I can’t wait.”

Redd’s Garage & Service was the kind of place her father would have gone to, an auto-body repair and mechanics shop that was full of old-school types who had tattoos they’d gotten in the Army, grease on their faces, and wrenches instead of computers to do the work.

And unlike Caldwell Auto, they had seen Fi-Fi worth saving.

Mels’s old Civic was backed out to the kind of fanfare that
West Coast Choppers
revealed their masterpieces with.

Then again, Mels’s ancient set of wheels, back in working order, was a miracle: Somehow the team here had gotten her into shape again.

“Oh, look at her!” Mels walked over as the mechanic got out from behind the wheel. “It’s … well, it truly is a miracle.”

That was the only word that kept coming to her: Her steady and sure car had been resurrected out of its catastrophic injuries and was once more on the road.

Frankly, she felt a kinship with the Civic. She had been through a crash, had pulled herself back together, and was about to hit the road. With Fi-Fi’s help, of course.

“Thank you so much,” she murmured, blinking fast.

A quick signature on some paperwork, and then she was sitting in the driver’s seat, running her hands around the wheel. Parts of the dash had had to be replaced because of the air bag deployment, and Fi-Fi smelled different—a little like clean oil. But she sounded the same and she felt the same.

Mels briefly closed her eyes as that familiar pain came back.

Then she opened them, reached over to her left hip, and drew the seat belt across her lap. After clicking the thing home, she put the engine in drive and eased out into traffic.

The previous three weeks had been … illuminating. Scary. Lonely. Affirming.

And her solace, apart from work, had been writing it all down … everything from stories about her father to details about the man she’d fallen in love with, to the aftermath.

Well, part of the aftermath, at least.

Hopping onto the highway, she allowed the other cars to set her speed as opposed to rushing around them impatiently. And she stopped at a deli on the way home, because it was a little past lunch-time and she was exhausted and starving from packing up her room and putting everything she owned into a little U-Haul trailer.

She wasn’t due in Manhattan until the following morning, so maybe when she got back to the house she’d take a nap in the sun-room.

Funny, she’d been doing that a lot lately, stretching out on that sofa that looked out over the garden, her head buttressed on a pillow,
her legs crossed at the ankles, a throw blanket pulled up to her pelvis.

She had a lot of sleep to catch up on.

Right after Matthias had died in front of her, she hadn’t slept for days, her mind spinning with a ferocity that made her feel like she was going insane. She’d been obsessed with replaying the whole thing over and over, from the impact outside the cemetery to Matthias taking that bullet in front of the garage. From seeing him in the hospital to sharing his bed. From her suspicions rising to their falling once again.

To the SanDisk.

As she came to a slowdown around a stretch of construction, she glanced at the radio. Bracing herself, she leaned in and turned the knob—

“—explosive investigation conducted by the
New York Times
into a shadow organization that, for decades, has been operating under the nation’s radar, conducting assignments at home and abroad—”

She turned the thing off.

Staring out over her pristine new hood, she tightened her grip on the wheel.

After three days of not sleeping and thinking over her options, she’d put a call in to her contact at the
Times
and driven down to meet him face-to-face.

When she’d turned the flashdrive—and the name of Isaac Rothe—over to Peter Newcastle, her only caveats had been that he not ask her where she got it, and that he not attempt to follow up with her in any way—because she had nothing to add.

The story had finally broken the morning before, on the front page of a paper with the resources, the balls and the worldwide reach to do the information justice. And the fallout was already beginning, government agencies up in arms, senators and congressmen addressing cameras and microphones with outrage, the
president scheduled to do a Q & A with Brian Williams at nine this evening.

In the end, she’d decided to give the story of a lifetime to someone else for two reasons: one, she valued her own life too much to roll the dice that there wouldn’t be retaliation; and two, if she reported it under her own byline, that meant she’d used Matthias, that he hadn’t been anything more than a source to her, that she’d helped when she had not out of the goodness of her heart, but because she’d been following a story.

It was kind of in the same vein of his having given her the intel to prove he’d been truthful—she passed it on to someone else so nobody could ever say that she hadn’t loved him.

Not that anyone knew about him.

At all, as it were. There had been nothing in the paper about his death—or his body. And when she’d gone back to the garage in the middle of her seventy-two-hour period of crazy-crazies, all she’d walked into was a police scene that had turned hot again.

Gone, gone, gone. The vehicles, the personal affects, any signs of inhabitation.

Jim Heron, and his friend, had disappeared.

End of the trail.

It was strange—she had started sleeping again the night after she’d gotten back from the trip to Manhattan to meet with Peter. Which was how she’d known she’d done the right thing with the flashdrive …

She had not expected to hear from the man again.

Except then, three days prior to the big story’s release, he’d called to let her know the massive article was coming out—and to offer her a job. He’d said that wanted someone with her kind of tenacity and focus to come in at the junior level—and she’d stopped him right there, explaining that a source had given her the files as is; she’d done nothing to compile, organize, or format the information.

“But you got to the source, didn’t you.”

Well, yes. And had her heart broken in the process.

In the end, she’d accepted the offer. She wasn’t stupid—and she was ready to get back to hard work and start pulling long hours again. Maybe it would help with pain management. …

God, she missed Matthias.

Or rather, what they might have had.

Because he had told the truth. About everything.

Pulling into her mom’s driveway, Mels parked Fi-Fi behind the U-Haul and left the window down, because the day was clear as a bell, without any rain in sight.

She ate half her deli sandwich at the counter, drank a ginger ale, and cleaned up just in case her mom returned from her camping trip on Lake George early.

Couch?

Why, yes, please … thank you.

Stepping out into the slate-floored sunroom, she popped the sliders and felt the warmth rush in. It was seventy-five in the sun, and the air smelled like fresh-cut grass, because the lawn men had come that morning.

The sofa was perfectly soft and cozy, and as she lay down, she took that blanket and SOP’d it, pulling it over her legs. Settling back, she glanced around at the potted plants on the little tables and the rocker and the fat armchair in the corner. So familiar, so safe.

She wasn’t aware of shutting her eyes or falling asleep … but a little later, the strangest noise woke her.

A scratching.

Jerking awake, she lifted her head off the cushions. On the far side of the screen, there was a little mutt of a dog, his fur standing straight up at all angles, his head cocked, his eyes kind under bushy eyebrows.

Mels sat up. “Well … hello, there.”

The animal pawed again, but carefully, like he didn’t want to damage the screen.

“Ah … we’re not a dog house, I’m afraid.” They’d never done the pet thing. “Are you lost?”

She expected him to run off when she approached, but he just stayed at the door, dropping his butt to the ground, as if that were the polite thing to do.

The moment she slid the screen back, he shot in and wagged in a circle at her feet.

Crouching down, she tried to find his collar or a tag or something—

“Hi.”

Mels froze.

Then she turned so fast to the screen door that she fell over.