Ad was breathing hard as he let his weapon fall to his side. Blood was everywhere, and so was the harpy's intestinal tract - matter of fact, the bastard was nearly cut in two, his spine the only thing that was linking his hips to the top half of his body.
From out of slack, flappy lips, gagging noises interrupted the steady stream of plasma that blocked the air the man was still trying to get down his throat.
That was going to stop soon, though.
"The devil ... made me ... do it... ."
"And she can keep you," Ad growled - before he stabbed the harpy right between the eyes.
There was a terrible screech as Devina's essence exploded out of the eye sockets of what had once been a street-lost addict, the black smoke coalescing, coming together, preparing an assault of its own.
"Fuck!" With a great leap, Adrian threw his body into the air and went sailing. Eddie's prone, injured figure was his landing pad, and he covered the angel's body with his own, becoming the shield that was all that could keep Devina out of his partner's flesh.
Bracing for impact, he thought to himself, Well, I hadn't expected to be this right, this soon.
About the death thing, that was.
At least Eddie was going to pull through. It was going to take more than a poke to down him for good. Wounds, after all, could be fixed - they had to be.
As Jim stood with Dog on the sidewalk outside of Veck's house, he was aware that he was taking a backseat approach to the soul in question, just following the guy from place to place and biding his time until Devina made the next move.
It was f**king painful as shit.
He was much more comfortable assuming an aggressive stance, but wait and see was sometimes the name of the game. Although, damn, the weather could be better. The rain was continuing to fall and he sure as hell could do without the windchill.
Could do without having to studiously ignore what was going on inside the house, as well.
Of course the pair of them were having sex.
Duh.
He'd caught the start of the fun and games just before they'd gone inside, so it was obvious what the next move was: Their chemistry was off the chain, and generally speaking, that was not the kind of stuff you walked away from.
Jim crossed his arms over his chest and hunkered in, all the hot-'n'-heavy making him think about the women he'd been with. Huh. Did Devina count as one? Only if she was in the brunette flesh costume, he supposed. Without it, he probably had to start an "animal" category.
But whatever. Regardless of species, he'd never once been with someone he gave two shits about. The f**king had been a participatory kind of mast***ation for him - and maybe, if he was honest, a head game with the chippies. He'd enjoyed getting them off, the sense of control over them being better than anything they'd made him feel in return.
His sex life was over now, though, wasn't it. What he had with that demon couldn't possibly counthat was fighting in the war, just with a different set of fists and elbows. And it wasn't like his lifestyle encouraged frickin' dating. Although ...
An abrupt image of Adrian and Eddie hooking up with that redhead in the hotel room in Framingham, Massachusetts, filtered down like it had rained into his head. He saw Eddie stretching over her while Adrian had looked dead behind the eyes as he went to join them.
Devina had done that to the angel. Put that emptiness in his stare.
Fucking bitch.
Taking out a Marlboro, Jim lit the thing and inhaled.
Veck was a lucky man to be with the woman he wanted. Jim was never going to have that. Even if he got Sissy free of -
"Fuck me," he muttered on the exhale.
Had the shit with that girl gone so far that in some ridiculous part of his brain, he was actually thinking of her as not just "his" as in a responsibility kind of way? But really "his"?
Had he lost his frickin' mind? She was like nineteen, and he was a hundred and forty thousand years old at this point.
Okay, maybe Adrian and Eddie were right. What was doing with that girl was a distraction. Yeah, he'd tried to package it to himself in all sorts of this-is-cool verbiage, but he'd so been lying. And naturally, when his partners had forced him to look at his head-in-the-sand, he'd thrown it back at them and huffed off like a little bitch.
A scratching at his leg brought his head down. Dog had curled into a sit at his feet and was pawing at his calf, looking worried.
"What is it - "
Jim's phone went off, and even before he grabbed it and checked the screen, he had a premonition of tragedy.
Accepting the call, all he heard was labored breathing. Then Eddie's voice, weak and broken. "Trade ... and Thirteenth. Help - "
The pealing laughter in the background was all kinds of bad news, and Jim didn't waste a moment. He left Dog on the sidewalk and whisked away to downtown, praying that blink-of-an-eye would get him there in time.
The address was irrelevant; all he had to do was zero in on the essence of his boys ... and he got there just as Adrian took his crystal dagger and nailed some crazy-ass, bleeding bastard right between the eyes.
Devina.
Jim didn't need the screech to know that something evil was coming out of that bag of flesh, and there was nothing on hand to stop it from getting into Eddie: The angel was down and then some, tucked into a tight ball, cell phone in what was now a lax hand.
Without stopping to think, Jim threw himself in the direction of the defenseless angel, hurling his body through the air - at the same time Adrian did.
Ad landed first.
And then Jim covered them all, without much hope of protecting anyone -
The strangest thing happened: His body dissolved into light, the same way it had when he'd been furious with Devina during the last round. One moment he was in his corporeal form ... the next he was pure energy.
Blanketing the angels beneath him. Keeping them safe.
The minion, demon, whatever the hell it was, hit with all e impact of a golf ball on a car hood, boinking off, leaving not even a dent behind. Immediately, it came again, to the same effect. Annnnnd a third time.
There was a long pause that Jim didn't buy a moment of. He could sense the presence circling them, searching for a way in.
All the while, it was clear Eddie was bleeding. The smell of copper was too bold to be from the body over by the alley's brick sidewall. Hell, maybe both of the angels were injured.
Time to end this bullshit.
Jim retracted himself, rising up into a column of brilliant light that nonetheless illuminated nothing of the grungy environs and threw no shadows. Squaring off at the evil, he focused everything he had on the smoky stain in the air -
And blew the f**ker apart.
The explosion had no flash, but the screech was as loud as an SUV braking on dry pavement, and then there was a strange, pattering follow-up on the ground, as if sand were being poured out of a satchel.
Jim resumed his corporeal form and knelt over his boys. "Who's hurt?"
Adrian groaned and rolled off his best friend, his hand clasping his side. "Him. Stabbed in the stomach."
Ad had clearly been nailed as well, but Eddie was the one who wasn't moving. Although at least when Jim touched the angel's shoulder, the guy flinched.
"How you doing?"
When there was a whole lot of no-answer, Jim glanced around. They needed to get off the streets. This was a busy area of the city at night, and the last thing he wanted was for some well-intentioned kibitzer to 911 the sitch. Or worse, for a mugger to come by. Or a policeman on patrol.
"How about you?" he asked Adrian as he measured the other end of the alley.
"I'm fine."
"Oh, really." Office buildings. Warehouse next to them. "Why are you wincing like that?"
"Constipation."
"Yeah. Right."
There was no chance they could go back to the hotel. They needed more privacy than what they'd get there, and anyway, there was no way he could carry Eddie through the frickin' lobby: Even though he could camo them both, the guy would still leave a trail of blood.
Then again, it was all a moot point because there was no flying with that kind of weight. He needed to find them shelter close by.
"You mobile?" he asked Adrian.
"Depends. Walking? Yeah. Flying? Don't think so." Jim scooped his arms under Eddie's prone body. "Brace yourself, big boy. This is gonna hurt."
With a surge, Jim threw the muscles of his thighs into service and hefted the angel's weight off the damp pavement. In response, Eddie groaned and tightened up, which was a bene, as it made the guy easier to hold on to.