The angel was dressed in black, as usual, and the various piercings on his face weren't half of what he supposedly had all over his body.
"You two finished bitching about me?" Jim turned the article facedown and crossed his arms over his chest. "Or are you just having a little break."
"How about you take this seriously."
Jim got up off the bed and went nose-to-nose with his soldier. "Am I giving any indication I'm f**king around?"
"You didn't drag us back here for the war."
"The hell I didn't."
As they faced off, Adrian was undaunted, even though as a former black ops assassin, Jim knew how to drop a heavyweight like the other angel twelve different ways to Sunday. "That girl is not your target," Ad said, "and in case you haven't noticed, we're down one. Distractions are not our friend."
Jim gave the Sissy reference a pass: he made a point never to talk about her. His boys had been witness to him finding her body, and they'd seen what that had done to him - so it wasn't as if they didn't know enough. And there was no reason to vocalize what seeing her in that wall had been like. Or mention the fact that while he'd been used and abused by Devina and her minions during the last round, he feared the young girl might have seen everything that had been done to him.
Shit ... the stuff on that "work" table was nothing you wanted even a battle-hardened man to witness. An innocent? Who was petrified already?
Besides, in actuality, the violations hadn't bothered him one way or the other. Torture, in whatever form it took, was nothing more than an overload of physical sensation - but again, no one needed to eyeball that, much less his girl.
Not that she was his.
"I'm on my way to go talk to Nigel," Jim bit out. "So if you're finished jerking me off? Or do you want to waste my time some more."
"Why aren't you already over there, then?"
Well, because he'd been sitting on that bed, staring into space, wondering where in the hell Devina had taken Sissy's body.
Except Jim was just that flavor of ass**le not to concede the point in the slightest.
"Jim, I know that this girl is a thing to you. But come on, man, we need to take care of business."
As Ad spoke, Jim looked over the guy's shoulder. Eddie was standing in the connector between the two rooms, his huge body tense, his red eyes grave, that long black braid of his over his shoulder with the tail end nearly at the waist of his leathers.
Fuck.
Adrian's loud noise was the kind of shit you could argue with. Or punch - which had happened before. But Eddie's steady, nonconfrontational routine didn't offer you a target. It was a mirror that simply reflected your own dumb-ass behavior.
"I've got this under control," Jim said. "And I'm going to see Nigel right now."
The archangel Nigel was in his private quarters in Heaven when the summoning came through.
It was about time to get out of the bath anyway.
"We are due for company," he said to Colin as he rose from the scented water.
"I shall stay herein - the bath is the perfect temperature." With that, Colin stretched in a languorous arch. His dark hair was damp from humidity and curling at the ends, his regal, intelligent face as relaxed as it ever got. Which was not terribly so. "You do realize why he's coming."
"But of course."
Crossing over the white marble and pulling aside the coral-and-sapphire drapery, Nigel stepped out and was careful to resettle the heavy vet-and-damask weight. No one needed to know who joined him in his bathing suite - although he suspected Bertie and Byron had an idea. They were, however, far too discreet to say anything.
Drawing on a silk robe, he did not bother to clothe himself in anything more formal. Jim Heron was going to care naught about his apparel, and given how this was likely to go, returning to the bath was going to be necessary.
With the pass of a hand, Nigel called the angel forth from the earth below, gathering Heron's corporeal body up and coalescing it here in his private quarters.
On his silk-wrapped chaise longue, as a matter of fact.
The savior looked utterly ridiculous on the raspberry expanse, heavy arms and legs flopping off the sides, his black T-shirt and beat-to-hell blue jeans an offense to such delicate fabric.
Heron came into his head a split second later and jumped to his feet, ready, alert ... and none too pleased.
"Ice wine?" Nigel inquired as he went over to a French bombe chest, the marble top of which served as a bar. "Or perhaps a dram?"
"I want to know who is next, Nigel."
"So is that a 'no' on the tipple?" He took his time choosing among the Baccarat decanters, and when he poured, it was slowly, steadily.
He was not some dolt of whom to make demands, and Heron needed to learn some manners.
Nigel pivoted and took a sip. " 'Tis light and refreshing."
"Fuck the wine."
Nigel let that one stay where it lay, and just stared at the savior.
When the Creator had appeared unto Nigel and Devina, and explained that there would be a final contest, both sides had had to agree to Heron's being the one on the field with the seven chosen souls. Naturally, each opposite wanted its values represented, and the end result was that this massive, war-minded angel standing afore him had equal amounts of the good and evil in him.
Nigel believed, however, that the fact that Jim's slain mother was within the walls of the manse here would be the tipping factor, and he still thought that was true. Moments like this, however, made him question the very foundation of this terminal game they were all playing.
The angel looked ready to kill.
"You have to tell me who it is."
"And as I have said before, I cannot."
"I lost, ass**le. And she cheated."
"I am well aware of the lines she has o'erstepped, and if you recall, my advice to you was to let her do what she will - reprisals shall come."
"When."
"When they do."
Heron did not like that answer, and he began to pace about the ornate tent with its drapes of satin and its Oriental rugs and the low bedding platform - around which, Nigel realized too late, two sets of very different clothes were scattered.
Nigel cleared his throat. "I cannot risk having an overturn that goes against us. I have stooped to Devina's level too much already by giving you Adrian and Edward. If I help you any further, I chance forfeiture of not just a round, but the entire contest. And that is unacceptable."
"You know who the soul is, though. And so does Devina."
"Yes."
"And that doesn't strike you as seriously uneven? She's going to go after them herself - probably already has."
"By the established and agreed-upon rules, she's not allowed to interact with the souls. She, as with myself, is supposed to influence you to influence them. Direct contact is not allowed."
"So why haven't you stopped it?"
"'Tis not my purview."
"Oh, for f**k's sake, Nigel, grow a set - "
"I assure you, his balls are just fine."
At the dry interjection, both Nigel and the savior turned to the draped archway that led into the bath. Colin hadn't bothered with a robe, but was standing there unapologetically nude.
And now that he had everyone's attention, the archangel tacked on, "I'll also ask you to watch your language, mate."
Heron's brows shot up, and there was a moment of tennis matching, whereupon his head went back and forth between the two of them.
Nigel cursed under his breath. So much for decorum. And privacy. "Ice wine, Colin?" he said gruffly. "And mayhap some robing?"
"I'm fine."
"True enough. But your lack of modesty offers you no better cover than the temperate air in this tent. And I have a guest."
A grunt was all that came in manner of reply. Which was Colin's way of proclaiming that there was no reason to be a stuffy old tart.
Lovely.
Nigel turned back to the savior. "I am sorry that I cannot grant you what you seek. Believe that."
"You helped me with the first."
"I was permitted that license."
"And look at how number two turned out."
Nigel hid his agreeing concern behind a sip of his glass. "Your passion is laudable. And I will tell you that your return to Caldwell is well-served."
"Thanks for the tip. There are two million people in that goddamn town. Hardly narrows it down."