Envy (Fallen Angels 3)

"Who are you?" he gritted out.

"You know exactly who I am." The laugh that followed was blade-sharp. "One note, by the way - those towels you keep putting up? They might stop you from seeing me, but it's not a vice versa kind of thing. I've always had my eye on you."

Veck shifted his stare over to Jim. The angel was shaking his head from side to side slowly, as if he knew exactly what was being said even though the cell was all but stapled to Veck's ear.

"Before you throw the phone to Jim," the woman, or whatever the f**k it was, said, "you should know that if anyone comes with you, I'll kill her. I'll take the knife I have right now in my hand and I'll start with her face. Are you aware of how long someone can live without a mouth? Long time. Ears? Teeth? She can be alive, but praying to be dead if you know what I mean. And I won't stop there ... I'll go down to her fingers. Just to the first knuckles. I'm good at walking the line, keeping them alive if I want to - who do you think taught your father all of his tricks?"

"If you touch her - "

"Who said I haven't already. Now be a good boy and throw the phone."

"Catch," Veck barked, as he tossed the thing over.

He didn't wait to see whether there was a safe landing. Racing for the stairs, he took them three at a time, the soles of his shoes squeaking, especially as he hard-cornered it on the second-floor landing.

The closet in his bedroom was full of weapons. Guns, ammo, knives - how that bitch knew about it all, he didn't want to think -

"Motherfucker !" he shouted as he opened the doors.

The shelves were empty.

But of course. The police had come and taken everything he had into evidence.

"That's not what you're going to need."

He wheeled around - and recoiled. Standing in the doorway of his room, Heron's partner, Adrian, was looking like a hot mess: His shirt had been rotted through in places and ... Christ, the smell.

Whatever, though, the guy was alive and breathing, and with the way things were going, that was the only data screen that counted.

"Guns aren't going to work," Adrian said.

"The hell they won't."

Rushing out of the room, Veck pushed past the man, his eyes watering from that acrid stench. Downstairs, he checked the other two obvious places he'd kept autoloaders: in the kitchen under the sink, and under the couch.

Gone.

Only one stash left.

As Jim Heron's angry voice drifted in from the kitchen, Veck went into the utility hall that connected the garage to the house. The washer and dryer were behind a pair of louvered doors, and he busted both sides open before squatting down. The dryer unit had been dropped during his last move, the bottom panel becoming loose enough so that if you knew where to press, it ...

Snapped. Right. Off.

And there they were. Two nines with fully loaded clips, with everything stored in plastic bags to keep them lint free.

"Thank you, Jesus."

"Those are not what you need."

Veck looked up. Jim was standing over him, that cell phone in his hand. The angel was so pissed off, a flush had ridden up his throat and nailed him in the face, but that wasn't the only glow he had going on: There was a fierce light emanating from his body, like he was a Lava lamp in the on position.

Veck leaped to his feet, images of Reilly being defaced giving him a very precise picture of what in fact was required. Ripping the guns out of those Ziplocs, he double-checked their actions, and then went down low again for the two extra clips.

"Where is she?" he demanded as he loaded up his pockets.

"If you go in there half-cocked, you're going to choose the wrong path."

"Fuck that, I'm fully cocked." He grabbed the guns, and shoved Heron out of the way.

His spare holster was hanging from the coatrack by the back door, and he slipped the straps over his shoulders. Both weapons went in perfectly, because he was a one-size-fits-all kind of guy, and then a light windbreaker covered the show.

"Where is she," he snapped.

"We need to talk first."

"Not on my list of things to do. Sorry."

At that, he unsheathed the pair of autoloaders and pointed one barrel at Jim Heron's chest and the other at Adrian's.

"Now, where is my woman."

Chapter 46

Well, this was going f**king great, Jim thought, as he stared into the business end of a nine.

"You tell me where she is," Veck bit out, "or I'll shoot you."

The guy meant it: He was cucumber cool, icebox ready. Kinda made you respect the bastard. Except he wasn't thinking straight, was he.

"You kill me," Jim pointed out levelly, "and I can't tell you where to go. You kill him" - he nodded in Ad's direction - "and I'm going to strangle you with your own colon."

There was a brief pause and then the gun pointed at him shifted no more than a millimeter to Jim's left.

The SOB pulled the trigger and buried a bullet into the molding right by Jim's ear.

"Who said anything about killing?" Veck subtly moved the muzzle lower. "Pain works wonders on tight lips. Besides, I'll bet if I did a callback they'd pick up."

Triangulating where the next bullet was going to land made Jim fear a new career as a falsetto - assuming he didn't want to take for granted the whole bullets-can't-touch-me thing. Then again, at least it wasn't Adrian's'nads on the line - given how much that guy could not sing.

"You might think this shit over, Jim," the other angel muttered. "We know the guy's got good aim."

Jim shook his head. "You don't know what you're walking into, Veck."

"Have I mentioned time is flying? God only knows what's happening to her."

"True, but she's not the one I'm worried about." Jim glanced over at Ad. "And I need to go with him. Any clue how I can do that?"

The other angel cursed softly. "That was Eddie's department.""No one's coming with me," Veck barked. "Or that woman is going to kill her. And will you stop wasting time - "

"Devina is not going to do shit to her! She needs you there, and Reilly alive is the only way to make sure you show up. Now will you give me a moment to think, ass**le?"

As Jim began pacing, Veck started spouting off, all, "Stop moving or I'll shoot," but he ignored the guy -

The second shot went into the floor at Jim's feet, and halted him. Pegging the Clint Eastwood motherfucker with a glare, he said, "That was, like, an inch from my boot, man."

"Next time it's your goddamn ankle."

"Better than your balls," Ad pointed out.

Jim turned to face the detective, ready to paint the true picture of Devina ... when he happened to glance down at the guy's bifurcated shadow on the tiled floor.

That pair of dark patterns looked like two trees in the forest ...

And you could stand behind trees, couldn't you. Hide behind them. Camouflage yourself to appear to be part of the environment such that anyone, like, say, your enemy, could look around ... and notice nothing.

After all, Devina had seemed to suggest she couldn't find him - but was he really willing to take a chance on something he didn't quite get?

Except then he thought about that shit with the badge. Granted, it had nearly split his own self in two, but was there any other solution? Short of sending this pistol-packing, pissed-off sonofabitch into the showdown alone?

"I have to get inside you," Jim said in a deep voice.

Veck frowned hard. "Sorry, you're not my type."

"We could put a wig and a dress on him," Adrian suggested. And as he got the hairy eyeball from everybody in the room, the angel shrugged. "They gotta make that crap in tarp size, right?"

"And to think I'm actually glad your smart ass is coming back," Jim muttered before refocusing on Veck. "I've got to come with you - and she can't know I'm there. So if you'll excuse me ..."

Jim closed his eyes and instinctively let the corporeal part of himself go, shedding his suit of skin and bones until he was nothing but the light source that animated his body from within.

The dissolve went off without a glitch - it was exactly what he had done but hadn't been able to control down in Devina's lair when he'd exploded in fury at her.

"Brace yourself, big boy," he said into the air.

Clearly, Veck heard him, because the guy recoiled, his eyes rolling around like peas in a jar at the prospect of being possessed. But this was the only way to protect him, and he must have known that because he didn't run.