Possession

Chapter Two

Six … seven…

Eight.

Sitting on the edge of his bed, Jim Heron waited to see if the grandfather clock on the landing had anything else to say. When all he got was an earful of silence, he took a draw on his Marlboro. He hated that goddamn timekeeper—the tone of it, the incessant gonging, and most especially the fact that from time to time, it let out a count of thirteen.

Not that he was superstitious.

Nah.

Okay, maybe just a little. Then again, events had recently shaken him out of his belief that reality was a single dimension based on what you could see, hear, and touch: Courtesy of accepting the position of savior of the friggin’ world, he’d learned that the devil in fact existed—and liked Louboutins over Blahniks, long walks on the beach, and sex doggy style. He’d also met some angels, become one himself, and been to a version of Heaven that appeared to be based on Downton Abbey.

So yeah, clocks that didn’t need to be wound, weren’t plugged into an outlet, and couldn’t count right? Not funny.

Taking a drag on his cigarette, he tilted his head back and blew out a steady stream. As the smoke rose, he looked around at his digs. Faded Victorian wallpaper. Ceiling with a stain in the corner. Leaded-glass windows in old sashes that were painted shut. Bed the size of a football field with a Gothic headboard that made him think of Vincent Price movies.

There were another thirty-three rooms like it.

Or was it thirty-four?

He’d been looking for inexpensive accommodations that were a little off the beaten path. He hadn’t exactly planned for a decrepit ark that had iffy running water, spotty electricals, a stove that burped gas, and drafty walls that let plenty of chilly air in.

Perfect. Right out of House Beautiful.

The mansion’s sole redeeming attribute, at least that he could figure, was the dour exterior: With dead vines crawling over its face and the cockeyed shutters and twelve kinds of glaring overhangs, the vibe suggested that whoever was inside might eat you alive. Plus the grounds were nothing but a couple of acres’ worth of brambles, spiky underbrush, and soon-to-be poison ivy to fight through.

Wouldn’t do a damn thing against Devina’s minions, but would defo keep the idiot teenagers away.

“Where are you …?” He stared up at the ceiling. “Come on, bitch.”

His demon opponent was not known for being patient—and he’d been waiting for a response for how long?

As he stabbed out his butt, the colorful flag across the way was a glaring reminder of how his newest tactic might have gone sour. In the game between good and evil, where he was the quarterback interacting with the seven souls on deck, and Devina, the whorish demon, and Nigel, the archangel with the stick up his ass, were “captains” of the teams, Jim was solidly ahead. Or rather, he’d put the good guys in front three to one. All it was going to take was one more victory—one more soul teased into choosing good over evil at a crossroads in his or her existence—and he had saved not just the world, but the afterlife, as well. And yeah, victory looked pretty much like you’d think it would: Not only could all the humans on the planet continue to go about their days, but the moral God-fearers who had passed Go, collected two hundred, and entered Heaven’s Manse of Souls, were safe for eternity.

Like, for example, his own mother, who’d been raped and murdered—may she rest in peace—could stay right where she was.

All things considered, he should feel pretty damned good about where he and his remaining wingman, Adrian, were.

He did not.

Fucking Devina. That demon had something he wanted, something that didn’t belong in her viscous prison of the damned. And thanks to all his military training and experience, the tactician in him had come up with a plan: Give him the innocent, and he would turn over one of his wins to the demon. Fair trade—and legal under the rules of the game. Those victory flags were his possessions—Nigel had told him that himself. And when it came to your possessions, you could do whatever you wanted with them.

Which was why eBay and frickin’ craigslist existed. Duh.

He’d expected the demon to bitch and moan about things—but he’d been so damned certain that ultimately she’d jump at the chance. Yeah, sure, according to Adrian she was nutty about her stuff, but this was the war—and if she won? She got to take over everything; Hell would literally come unto the Earth.

Instead? After he’d made his offer, she’d told him she’d think about it.

Like it was a fucking pair of shoes or something? Come on. WTF.

Getting to his feet, Jim stalked around the room, disturbing the fine layer of dust that covered the floorboards. When the inevitable creaking got on his nerves, he headed into the bathroom out in the hall.

Talk about your bed & breakfast fantasies gone bad. The rose-patterned wallpaper had faded until there was nothing but a shadow of color left—probably better that way, considering all that estrogen-drenched-decor crap made him scratch. The ornate mirror over the sink was cracked and had liver spots across its reflective face, so when you looked at yourself, you got an eyeball full of where you were headed when you hit seventy. And the floor was a forget-about-it stretch of chipped marble.

But come on, he’d showered in so much worse.

Going over to the claw-footed tub, he supposed the thing might have been romantic if, one, he’d been into that shit, which he wasn’t, and two, it hadn’t been stained yellow on the inside from mineral deposits, and green on the outside from the copper feet. And then there was the noise. As he cranked the once-gold-leafed handles on, the cold side let out a scream, like the pipes were not happy about pulling chilly stuff in from the main line in the street.

The water that came out of the corroded showerhead was more a drool than any kind of spray, but over the last two days, it had proven capable of soaping him up and rinsing him off. Dropping trou, he stepped under the cold dribble and reached for the soap.

His body wasn’t particularly bothered by the fact that there was no warmth. God knew, during his career in XOps, he’d done a hell of a lot worse to it. Sudsing himself up, he passed his palms over all kinds of scars, from old stab wounds, to bullet and shrapnel aftermath, to a couple of surgeries that had been performed in combat zones—except for that one that had been done in a bedroom in Paris.

“Where are you … Devina …” FFS, she was going to do his nut in.

Which was crazy. During his twenty-year career as a shadow assassin for the U.S. government, you’d think he’d be used to this: War had a rhythm that was counterintuitive. There were long stretches of inactivity and waiting—interspersed with great explosions of life-or-death, keep-it-tight-or-get-jacked drama.

Usually he handled the lulls better.

Not anymore, apparently.

Although, granted, the stakes were higher than anything ever wagered on his performance before. He won? Hell was nothing but a morality play that didn’t have a stage anymore.

So maybe he should have just cooled his heels for one more round, taken a fourth win, and then the innocents would have been free, and everything would have game over’d in a good way.

The trouble was, he didn’t know whether Sissy Barten would survive that. The girl was trapped down below in that wall—and if Hell was destroyed, wouldn’t she go poof! with it? Or did she get a pass because her soul was clean?

He didn’t know, and he couldn’t take a chance on that … so he waited for Devina’s response.

And had to wonder what the demon was cooking up—

Brilliant light exploded into the bathroom, blinding him so badly that he dropped the soap to cover his eyes with his hands.

He knew who it was—even before an aristocratic English voice cut through the anemic shower.

“Have you lost all your wits!” Nigel, the archangel, demanded.

Great. Just what he was looking for.

A confron with the boss.

Adrian’s first clue that all was not well in Casa d’Angel was the illumination that cut in around the closed door to his bedroom. Bleeding through the jambs like the detonation flash of a car bomb, it could only be explained by a visit of the archangel variety.

Either that or that crap-ass stove downstairs in the kitchen had spontaneously combusted.

Getting off the bed, he limped to the door naked and opened things up so he could get a gander at the drama.

“… not interested—so fucking not interested…”

As Jim marched out of the loo with a towel around his hips and water dripping off his hair, his voice was deep and low, like a rattlesnake giving a warning.

Nigel wasn’t impressed. The boss man from Up Above was tight on the other angel’s balls, the English-accented dandy looking like he was on his way to the symphony: White tie seemed a little formal for the ass kicking that was rolling out. Although it was after dark.

La-di-frickin’-daaaaa.

Neither of them seemed to notice as Ad leaned back on his doorjamb and Milk Dudded the show. Then again, any kind of third-wheel routine was way down on the list of their priorities.

“… did you think you can just give away a win?” Nigel bit out as they went into Jim’s room, his accent sharpening the syllables into knives. “You have no right— Dear God, is that the flag?!”

Adrian whistled under his breath. The last time he’d heard that tone come out of that otherwise proper mouth?

He and Eddie had spent a century or two in Purgatory.

Fun, fun.

Jim’s gauge was still hitting high on the fuck-ya meter, however. “My possession, right? They’re mine—you told me that yourself. So I can—”

The slap that resonated out of the open door made Ad wince.

“That’s your free shot,” Jim growled. “Next time you do that? I’m going to kill you.”

“I’m not alive, you fool. And you are putting everything at risk.”

“How do you know what I’m doing with the goddamn flag.”

“You’re giving it to her. For whatever reason I cannot discern. In fact, I cannot fathom what could possibly be as valuable as your being one win away from victory.”

Adrian repositioned his weight off his bad leg and shook his head. Okaaaaay. Not aware that Jim was tampering with things on this kind of level. But he knew who it was about.

Sissy Barten.

“Fuck,” Ad muttered as the math added up. “Fuuuuck.”

“Nigel, welcome to reality,” Jim spat, “you are not in control here.”

“Have you no thought of your mother!”

There was a beat of silence. “You think that’s your ace in the hole? My leash to bring me back to your yard?”

“Forgive me for making the assumption that you might care about her eternal salvation.”

As the pair of them argued, swiping insults and getting angrier, the grandfather clock on the stairwell landing began to chime.

But hadn’t it just gone off?

One, two, three…

That thing creeped him the fuck out.

… four, five, six…

Such hostile voices going back and forth, the pair of them like two wolves circling. And meanwhile, somewhere in Caldwell, a soul was in play—and Devina knew who it was.

But Jim did not.

Adrian rubbed his eyes and tried to refocus them. Getting used to having only half his vision was taking time, the flat plane of landscape screwing with his depth perception, his sense of where he was in space, the arrangement of his limbs.

… seven, eight, nine…

This stuff with the flag was bad juju: Jim takes a win down off the wall without telling Nigel? There was only one reason for that … the guy was going to try to trade it for Sissy’s soul.

This was out of control. The whole goddamn thing.

… ten, eleven, twelve…

Adrian glared across the second-floor foyer, at that old clock on the staircase’s landing. “Go on, do it, you fucking—”

The thirteenth chime that followed sure as hell felt as if the thing had flipped him off. And as the mournful sound faded, the argument raged on, Nigel and Jim locked into a rhythm where they were just emoting, neither of them listening to the other.

And as they wasted this energy? The game was continuing: Although there were parallels to football, there were no time-outs in this seven-round war between good and evil. And from the way things were just going in Jim’s room? The savior wasn’t giving in or seeing the light; he was just going to do whatever he damn well pleased.

His attention wasn’t on the war. It was on Sissy—and it was going to stay that way.

And Nigel’s focus? It was on wanting to beat the crap out of Jim.

Devina, however, was no doubt moving forward, circling around the soul even though she wasn’t supposed to…

The solution Ad came up with was radical and had a poor likelihood of success, but what else could he do?

The two bigger players on the team were at each other’s throats—and there was no better predictor for an enemy’s success than that kind of divided attention.

Going into his room, he pulled on some clothes, sat on his bed, and gripped his knees. As he closed his eyes, he sent out a request, the paranormal equiv of a page.

It took about two seconds to receive the summoning he was looking for.

Which meant Colin, the archangel, knew exactly why Nigel had gone earthbound—and was no happier about shit than Ad was.