Immortal (4 page)

“Maybe we should just take a trip to Purgatory.”

“Excuse me?” Jim asked.

Ad shrugged. “That shit about not making it into Heaven if you commit suicide is no bullshit. Trust me.”

As the guy cleared his throat like he'd gone too far, Jim's wheels got turning. “You're saying Purgatory is real.”

“Been there, got the T-shirt. Blah, blah, blah.”

“So how'd you get out?”

“Eddie.”

Jim sat up straight. “You're telling me Eddie went in there and came back out? With you?”

“Hold up.” The guy extended his hands in classic stop-it-right-thur style. “I was just being a smart ass—don't even
think
about that. You're our special golden boy, whatever—and Eddie condemned himself to do it. Besides, no offense, but you're still getting up to speed, this is a clutch round, and we both know how well things go when you're ‘distracted.'”

The air quotes would have made Jim violent . . . except for the fact that he had come to the same conclusion, which was why he was here and not going after Sissy. As much as it pained him, he needed to win and he needed to somehow keep his job even with Nigel being dead. If he could prevail, and avoid turning into an archangel, then after the great victory or whatever he'd have an eternity to help Sissy. Now was the crisis time for the war, though.

Besides, the rounds had been coming faster and faster. Forty-eight hours. Maybe seventy-two—and he could refocus on her.

“I've got to go over and bring him back.”

“Jim, you're fucking crazy—”

“What's my other option?” Jim narrowed his eyes. “If Devina's right, and I'm supposed to succeed Nigel? I can't let that happen. I don't trust anyone else to do this job—I can win this, Ad. I can goddamn win this.”

All he had to do was think back to the way he'd spent the night. Devina had a critical weakness . . . and it was him. She wasn't suggesting they both throw in the towel because she was scared of losing—it was because she didn't want to lose contact with him: Unless he quit, he was apparently going to have to step into Nigel's spats and she didn't want to fight with anyone other than him. Fuck the rules, fuck the archangels, fuck the Creator—Devina was a parasite addicted to acquisition and he was her number one target.

And she was going to take that weakness to her grave.

Because he was going to personally escort her there with it.

Adrian's one functioning pupil roamed around Jim's face, and Jim held himself perfectly still. He was prepared to take any scrutiny, because he knew, down to his soul, what he needed to do . . . and how he was going to do it.

“Ad,” he said in a low voice, “I can do this.”

The other angel almost hid the tremors that crept into his hands. But the fine tic that teased his bad eye was nothing he could camo. “No, you can't.”

“What put you in there, Ad. How'd you get over.” Not questions, because he knew the answer. “Devina got into you, didn't she. She got to you somehow, and you couldn't take it—so you ate a bullet. You slit your wrists. You hanged yourself—”

“A cliff.” The voice that interrupted was so hoarse, it was made of ninety percent air. “I, ah . . . I had made a deal with her to save someone.”

Jim waited for the story to roll out. When it didn't, he said, “What happened.”

Ad cleared his throat and covered his face with those shaking hands. “I made an arrangement to save someone and I turned myself over to that demon. I was down on that table of hers for . . . it felt like years. Eddie told me later it was two nights of earth time. When I came back, after she released me, I wasn't the same.”

Like bats out of Hell itself, memories of Jim's own time down there swarmed and descended, clouding his brain. He knew exactly what Ad was talking about. He'd been on that table, too.

That was how his path had first crossed Sissy's.

After he'd found her body, that was.

“I thought I was okay.” Ad shook his head. “I wasn't. I lasted about a week, made some excuse to Eddie about going somewhere. I was going to shoot myself, but I'm an angel, right? I
wanted to die flying. So I jumped and did nothing about it . . . the canyon was about seventy feet deep. I hit hard and that was all it took. Split second later—shit, I thought I'd survived. I woke up in Purgatory—I thought it was gray because of moonlight or some shit.”

Finally, Ad dropped his arms. His eyes, both of them, were red ringed from tears he refused to let fall.

“Eddie went there because of me, but he was also the reason we got out. The Creator has a thing for love.” Ad stared at his own hands, watching them shake. “I mean, Eddie sacrificed himself for me, and that's love, right? Not the dumb-ass romantic kind . . . but the real shit. So yeah, when Nigel went to the Creator and argued for us—that was what worked. Nigel was able to strike an arrangement that freed us about a month before you came along. If we see you through this war? We're free. It's our penance.”

“So you can help me find that archangel and get him back.”

“Maybe Devina is talking out of her ass, though. Not like that bitch has a problem lying—”

“So you can help me,” he repeated.

Ad shook his head again. “Jim, this is a really bad idea.”

“But you can get me there, can't you.”

“No, that's on you.”

As their eyes met, Jim knew exactly what the guy was talking about. “But you can help me out of there.”

“No, I can't. Didn't you listen to me? It's not up to us, buddy.” Ad looked up at the ceiling. “Your exit visa can only be issued by the Creator.”

Jim could sense the guy retreating—and that couldn't happen. “Listen, this is an extraction. Nothing more, nothing less. You think I haven't done one of these before? I'll go in, get him, bring him out—”

“You don't know what the fuck you're talking about.”

“There has to be a way.” Jim curled up a fist and banged it on the table, making the plate and fork dance. “Even if Devina is wrong? Heaven is stronger with Nigel back up there. Colin's head is completely fucked with the bastard gone, and right now, Bert and Ernie—”

“That would be Albert and Byron.”

“Fine, whatever. Call 'em Mozart and Beethoven for all I care. The two of them are holed up in the Manse of Souls, stuck there, while Colin is disintegrating. And this is not a hypothetical. I went up there after I got home last night. All it's going to take is for Devina to get a hard-on to hit the place, and then we got another set of problems we don't need. Hell, the Creator can't even control her, and she sure as shit doesn't follow the rules. What do you think is gonna happen.”

“But what if I can't get you back? Then what? Or haven't you thought it through that far.”

“Then you take over.”

“Not in the rules.”

“Fuck the rules. You'll handle things because that's what men like you and me do.”

“On that logic, you could just go up and be Nigel now, and let me take care of the next schlub who fills your shoes. Save the trip to the other side and skip the risk that you're going to get stuck there.”

“But I'm the reason Nigel's gone.” Jim jabbed his thumb into his own chest. “I did it. It's my fault. If I had done shit different . . . except that doesn't matter anymore. I want to make amends for the death, and the only way to do it is to bring him back. I settle my debts, Ad. You hear me?”

Adrian scrubbed his face. “I don't know. I guess there might be a way to get you out.”

“See, I knew this was going to work.”

“I did
not
say that.”

“Whatever, I'm not a quitter. Even if Devina wasn't a liar, I'm not quitting this. I'm marshaling my weapons and moving forward. First, we get Nigel back. Then we're going to hunt down Devina's lair, we're going to take that mirror of hers, and we're going to win these final two rounds. That is our plan. We are going to execute it.”

“What about the next soul?”

Jim opened his mouth to reply—but didn't get that far. The back door to the mansion blew wide open like it had been hit by a gale-force wind.

“You're
fucking
her?!” Sissy spat.

Sissy was breathing hard even though she'd run only the fifteen feet between where she'd parked the Harley and the back door to the old house. Then again, she'd had to hang onto the bike's handlebars with a death grip on the ride back. It was either that or lose total control.

Or had that already happened, even though she'd made it here in one piece?

“Well?” Like Jim hadn't heard her. “You've got nothing to say?”

Jim reached forward and calmly stamped out his lit cigarette. “Sissy—”

“She had you raped!” As Jim's face went ashen, she slammed the door behind herself, shutting them all in. “Did you think I don't know what she had done to you? We all saw it from the walls! I watched when they . . . hurt you. How do you—” Her voice cracked. “How can you be with her after something like that?”

At that moment, she wanted to weep, but she didn't give in. How could she? This wasn't a safe place for her, even though the two “men” who were at the table, both so silent and still, were supposedly angels.

“Whose side are you really on?” she demanded.

Jim put his palms on the table and braced his arms. As he
stood up, it was clear he had an iron lock on his temper, and for a split second, she felt a flash of fear.

But she'd already faced off with the devil herself. So she wasn't about to be frightened by him.

“Fine, forget about what she did to you—she murdered me!” Sissy barked. “That bitch took my life away from me. She ruined my family's lives. Nothing will be the same and nothing will ever be right—and you're
sleeping
with her?”

Jim's voice was deep and low. “Adrian, you need to leave this room now.”

The other angel was up and out of his chair before the sentence was finished. And as he limped out, Sissy was glad for the privacy. Shit was going down, and this did not need an audience.

When they were alone, Jim locked eyes with her. “I didn't want you to see that.”

“What they did to you, or the scratches she left on your chest last night?”

“Either.”

“Too late.”

He closed his lids, but she wasn't sure whether that was because he had serious regrets . . . or because he was trying to figure out what to say.

“I just don't get you.” She shook her head. “And maybe that makes me naive—”

“This is war,” he cut in.

“And that is just sick!” she yelled back. “You're disgusting!”

With an explosive lunge, he flipped the table over, sending a plate flying, scattering chairs. “Do you think I'll stop at using anything it takes to win! Even if it's myself!”

Sissy took a step back, and hit the counter by the stove. Something about seeing his anger got hers under some control.

After a long moment of standoff, she said grimly, “I don't
expect you to enjoy it, how 'bout that. Or are you going to tell me men can get it up even though they're grossed out by someone? Didn't think the anatomy worked like that—then again, I'm a virgin, right. So what do I know.”

Jim was breathing hard now, his blue eyes glowing, and not in a good way. But he wasn't going to hurt her—in spite of what he'd just done to that poor table, she knew deep down in her soul he would never, ever hurt her.

At least not physically.

He'd already torn her apart on the inside, however. Although she wasn't sure exactly how he'd gotten the power to do that.

“I hate it,” he said raggedly. “But I will use any weapon in this war, even my own body. Are we clear?”

“So now you're a martyr as well as a savior? I don't know, like I said, I think men have to enjoy it, don't they.”

“I can't do this with you.” He started shaking his head. “I'm not going to do this with you.”

“As if it's none of my business? Like the outcome of all this doesn't affect me?”

“No, as in you aren't entitled to this airtime.” As she gasped, the anger flushed from his face and he stared at her with no emotion at all. “You're the reason I lost the last round. Not Devina. It was you. I was so goddamn worried about you that I couldn't concentrate—and the results were disastrous on too many levels. So I'm not going to do this with you. I can't. I just . . . fucking can't.”

She recoiled. “It was . . . me you were distracted by?”

“It sure as shit wasn't Devina.”

Jim cursed his way over to the table and righted the thing like it weighed no more than a dime. Then he picked up the plate, located the fork over by the ancient refrigerator, and took them both over to the sink.

“I've got work to do,” he said on his way out.

And that was that.

At least on his side.

Sissy went after him, catching him by the arm before he hit the stairs in the front hall. She had to throw her anchor out big time to get him to turn around.

“I don't need you to worry about me,” she gritted out.

“Okay, I won't.”

She hid her wince. “And as for you and Devina, that's your business.”

“Damn straight it is.”

“But I need you to let me help.”

“Oh, hell no. There's no place for you in this—”

“I earned the right to fight by dying in her bathtub. By being in her wall. I earned the right to be in this, Jim.”

“No fucking way—”

“I have to fight for the others like me.” That shut him up enough for her to get a word in. “There are more like me down there. And they deserve to be free just like me. So you either let me help you win this, or I'll go after her on my own. Your choice.”

“You don't know what you're saying.”

“The hell I don't.”

“She can read the book.”

At the sound of Adrian's voice, both of them turned to the front door. It was wide-open, and the other angel was parked on the front steps of the house, facing the sunshine.

Like he knew he'd gotten their attention, Ad twisted around. “If you want to get in and out of Purgatory in one piece, we're going to need her. Unless you want to spend the next twenty years on Google Translate—and we don't have that kind of time.”

“What book?” Jim demanded.

“The one that might be able to tell you what you need to know.”

“Purgatory?” Sissy interrupted. “What the hell are you talking about?”

The archangel Colin sat on the river's shore up in Heaven, staring at the rushing water. In his dirty right hand, a crystal dagger rested against his palm, and in his filthy left, a bottle of gin. He'd gotten both from Nigel's tent across the lawn.

The mess upon his flesh had been from his recent endeavors.

He took a deep swig of the Beefeater and squeezed the hilt of the dagger even tighter. In spite of his being an immortal, his body could function in the manner of a human if he assumed the flesh he was in the now.

And that meant he could feel the liquor taking effect, the exhaustion in his bones . . . and the madness in his mind.

Of all the ends he had considered in this war, him sitting alone and Nigel gone had not been among them.

Back at the time of Creation, the archangels had been brought into being as guardians of Heaven and the Manse of Souls. The five of them had been a deliberate balance of qualities, all fingers aboard a single palm, each with a part to play in the balance of function: Byron, who was the soul; Bertie, who was the heart; Colin, the mind; Lassiter, the body.

And Nigel, the rule-abiding leader of them all.

Lassiter had been the wild card, and he had not lasted. Distracted by physical yearnings, he had gotten into epic trouble and been banished, lost to a destiny and destination of which Colin was only vaguely aware. On the other hand, Bertie and Byron had been steadfast and true since the beginning, and now, in this moment of crisis with Nigel gone, they were behind the walls of the Manse, protecting what needed tending to.

Nigel hadn't lasted, either—and the fact that he had quit was
a fall from grace Colin struggled with as much as he did all the rest of this tragedy.

Had there been signs he'd missed? he wondered. Some tip-off that Nigel had reached a turn in the journey he could not navigate?

It was impossible not to blame oneself . . . not to feel as if his own hand had been on that dagger when the silver blood of his beloved had been shed.

More than half of him was gone now. The very best part of him was gone.

And the Creator was not prepared to intervene. God had been the first place Colin had gone in desperation. The second had been Nigel's French marble-topped bombé table with its silver tray of fine liquors upon it.

Colin took another deep draft from the bottle, the razor-sharp taste slicing down the back of his throat and fanning the flames in his gut.

His eyes went to the vicious tip of the dagger. Heaven's ambient light entered the clear blade and refracted off its facets in a rainbow of glorious flashes.

He had wiped the silver blood off in Nigel's tent. God knew, in that silk-strewn palace of an abode, there had been plenty of stray cloth from which to choose.

And then he had stripped a bolt of crêpe de Chine from the wall and wrapped the body up.

Fortifying himself with another pull from the neck of the bottle, he twisted 'round and felt tears come to his eyes.

The funeral pyre was a meter and a half off the ground and constructed of an ancient oak that Colin had chopped down in the woods. A ragged trail had developed between where the tree had been felled and where he'd done the building, the path gouged by his dragging the massive limbs and trunk over. To
cleave the wood, he'd used the dagger in his hand and the strength of his upper body, and the nails had been harvested from a shed behind the Manse of Souls, old-fashioned, square-shanked strips of metal that he'd banged into place with a rock.

The pyre was not a work of art, especially not when compared to the fine antiques that Nigel had surrounded himself with. Indeed, the archangel had had a preference for things of beauty, a reason, he had often said, for his attraction to Colin.

This was no fitting end for the archangel. No fitting end a'tall.

Colin sat for a time, drinking and thinking. And then he roused himself and went over to his lover. The silk he'd chosen to wrap Nigel up in was a soft French blue—and he'd picked it mostly because he'd hoped the silvery stains from the blood wouldn't show overmuch.

He'd covered Nigel's face. He simply couldn't look at it, because the features and the coloring were too close to health for comfort. It was too tempting to think that if he just waited long enough, and said some combination of words, his other half would sit up and reply to him.

Folly. And that ridiculous impotent optimism had to be put aside.

First, the disposition of the remains. And then he had work to do.

Colin reached over and tucked a fold of the silk in tighter under the body. The concept of prayer, for an angel, was foreign. For one thing, he could make entreaties directly to the Maker, so sending up wishes or hopes upon the air was not necessary. For another, prayer was typically rooted in helplessness or despair, and historically neither was something he'd ever felt.

Tipping the bottle over the body, he poured the clear liquor Nigel had favored out in a steady stream from head to toe; then he took a long drink, put up his palm, and summoned heat. As he
cast the energy forth, the super-charged molecules combusted in a burst of white flame, the silver blood and the gin creating an ignition platform.

He stepped back. Kept drinking.

Smoke the color of snow wafted up as Nigel was cremated, and as Colin watched, he thought that the billowing white waves were a kind of prayer—or at least the closest he would ever get to one.

He ended up on the ground, sitting with his legs crossed. The consumption was taking longer than he had thought, and he would not leave until there was nothing left but ashes.

And then he was going to settle this score with Jim Heron.

With the very dagger Nigel had used upon himself.