"Noooooo..." The word was extended for the length of a horrified exhale, as if whatever he was seeing made nightmares seem like sitcoms.
With a gasp and a shudder, the guy passed into the hereafter, an expression of terror freezing on his face as a line of blood oozed out of the corner of his mouth.
Vin kicked those loose legs a couple of times and then he listened hard. He could hear wind whistling up the stairs, but there were no other sounds anywhere else.
He backed up slowly, gun swinging from left to right in case somebody came up from down below or popped out of any of the doorways.
Inside the bedroom, he held his arm wide and Marie-Terese came forward for a hard hug. She was shaking, but she held on strong for the split second they were together.
"Can you do CPR on Jim?" he asked. "Or do you want to hold this gun on - "
"No, I'll take care of him." She went over to the man, knelt down and put her ear next to Jim's mouth. "He's still breathing, but it's not by much."
Whipping off her fleece, she wadded it up and put it to the bleeding wound on the front of the chest and pushed down while she took his pulse. "So faint...but it's beating so I can't do chest compressions. The ambulance is due in five minutes."
Which was forever in a situation like this.
"Don't shoot," came a groggy voice from downstairs. "It's just me."
"Eddie?" Vin called out. "Jim's hit!"
When Eddie appeared at the top of the stairs, he looked like roadkill, and as he limped forward, he glanced down at the intruder. "That's really dead. How's Jim?"
"Good," Marie-Terese whispered as she stroked the man's face. "Right, Jim? You're good and you're going to get fixed. You're going to make it just fine..."
Vin put his gun down on the bed and knelt on the other side of Jim, mirroring Marie-Terese's position on the floor as she reached out to the fallen man.
"He saved me," she said, her fine hand stroking Jim's thick arm. "You saved me, Jim. I'd be dead without you...Oh, God, Jim, you saved my life..."
Vin ran his eyes over that big chest and didn't need a medical degree to know that the wound the man had taken was fatal. Jim was breathing in the same shallow way the intruder had been, and he was soon going to go the route the shooter had: His color was fading at an alarming rate, evidence of internal bleeding.
Shit, there was nothing they could do other than wait for the pros to come with their stretcher. CPR was not an option as long as Jim had a pulse and was breathing on his own, and pressure wasn't going to do shit for a torn artery.
For the first time in Vin's life, he started praying for the sound of sirens.
Jim had been shot before. And stabbed. Hanged once, too. He'd been injured in fights by fists and crowbars and jackknives and boots. Even been impaled with a Montblanc pen.
In all of those situations, he'd known he was going to survive. No matter how much it had hurt, or how much he'd bled, or how vicious the weapon, he'd known his injuries weren't fatal.
And now he knew with the same certainty that the bullet in his chest had left in its wake the kind of tearing trail that was going to carry him to his royal reward.
Angel or no angel, he was dying. Funny, it didn't hurt much. There was a sharp burning, sure, and he was having trouble catching his breath - which he took to mean either his lungs were starting to fill with blood, or his chest cavity was flooding out - but overall he was comfortable. Maybe a little cool, but mostly comfortable.
So he was clearly in shock.
Guess that little bullet had nicked an artery.
He opened his mouth on instinct only, not because he wanted to pray or beg for the medics to come faster: He was drowning in his own body and that was the long and short of it.
And it was not a bad outcome, really. Thanks to the Four Lads, he knew he'd be seeing his mother soon. And he hoped to meet up with the lovely blond girl who hadn't deserved to die as she had.
All that put him at peace.
Funny, as he pictured those English guys in their whites with their dog, he wished them well and felt sorry for them. Guess those angels had been wrong. He wasn't the answer to their problems - although at least he'd gotten Vin and Marie-Terese on the right track.
And it was strange to know, but it had turned out the crossroads had been his, not Vin's.
When he'd seen that gun muzzle up and all ready to rock-and-roll, his only thought had been about Vin and Marie-Terese. Saving her meant saving them both, and their love was worth so much more than one paltry life.
It was the first time he'd done that. The first time he'd not only been truly unselfish, but acted out of something other than anger or vengeance. And he'd never been more sure of anything, except the need to avenge his mother all those years ago.
Summoning his flagging strength, Jim focused his eyes and saw Marie-Terese and Vin bending over him. Vin had gripped his hand and was talking at him, the man's face intense to the point of distortion, his features pulling together, his eyes burning. Jim tried to concentrate and get his hearing to work, but sound was beyond him. Best guess was that the guy was telling him to hold on, ambulance on the way, hold on, ambulance coming...Oh, God, Jim, stay with us...
On the opposite side, Marie-Terese was silently crying, her beautiful eyes resplendent in her sorrow, her crystal tears falling off her cheeks and onto his chest. She had his other palm and was slowly rubbing his arm as if trying to warm him up.
He couldn't feel a thing, but as he watched her stroke him, he was touched.
Unfortunatley, he didn't have a lot of time left with them, and he didn't have the breath to speak...so he did the only thing he was able.
With the last of his strength, Jim brought their hands together, linking them over the pinhole in his chest that had changed everything for all three of them, holding the two halves of them so they were one.
As his vision receded, he looked at those fingers, the small and the large, woven among each other. In a rush, he knew for certain the future was going to be kind to them. The demon was gone from Vin and somehow those talismans were in the possession of Adrian. These two fine, broken people were going to heal each other and walk through the hours and days and years of their decades side by side, and it was right; it was good.
He'd done a good thing. After so many years of taking lives, he'd saved one that mattered. And two that counted.
At the crossroads, he'd chosen wisely.
Abruptly, Jim's chest seized up and he coughed hard, his mouth becoming wet. His next inhale was nothing but a gurgle, and his heart started to hopscotch. Not long now, not long at all.
He couldn't wait to see his mother. And he was surprised at how much what he had done put him at peace.
Just as red lights played across the ceiling - the sign that an ambulance had pulled into the driveway - Jim let out his last breath...and died with a smile on his lips.
Chapter 41
The ambulance ride was bumpy from the speed and bright from the flashing lights. The sirens, however, came on only at intersections. Marie-Terese took this as a good sign.
Sitting on a built-in bench beside Vin, with one hand locked on a vertical stainless-steel bar to steady herself and the other tight to his warm palm, she figured if his condition were really dangerous, the rip-snorting, high-pitched stuff would be going constantly.
Or maybe she was just trying to placate herself.
As he lay on the gurney, Vin's eyes were closed and his face was pale, but he was holding on to her. And every time they went over a pothole, he winced, his lips pulling back off his white teeth - which had to mean he wasn't in deep shock or a coma. And that was good, right?
Compared to the downside potential.
She glanced over at the medic. The woman was concentrating on the screen of a portable EKG, and her expression gave nothing away.
Marie-Terese leaned to the side and tried to get a look at whatever readout the machine was giving...and all she saw was a white line making some sort of pattern against a black background. She had no clue what it meant.
Out the back window of the ambulance, she prayed to see more street lamps on the sidewalks...and buildings instead of strip malls or residential streets...and cars parked parallel to the curb.
Because that meant they were finally downtown.
It wasn't just for Vin's sake.
Shifting around and moving her butt forward on the seat, she was able to look through the front windshield, and she took solace in the fact that the ambulance ahead of them - which had Jim in it - still had its lights going. The medics had triaged both men, called for a second team, and treated Jim first - and she had stood out in the hall with Eddie as a portable defibrillator had been brought in and that wounded chest had been shocked once...twice...