Crave (Fallen Angels 2)

And so would Isaac.

"You guys head in," he said to his boys as they came up to a door propped open by a cinder block. "I'm going to hang out here. Let me know if you see Rothe."

Except he was going to bet they didn't. If the soldier was here at all, he'd be hiding somewhere and scoping out who had come before making himself known. After all, it didn't take a genius to figure out that getting popped by the police was tantamount to sticking a red flag in your ass.

Which was why in some respects, intercepting the assassin was even more important than running into Isaac.

As Eddie and Ad slipped through the fire door, Jim faded back so that he was standing in the lee of the building. Which was out of habit rather than necessity--no one could see him.

Another bene of being an angel: He could choose when he was visible to mortals.

Lighting up a Marlboro that he kept as hidden as his leather jacket and his combats, he tracked the crowd as it filed in. Tonight's peanut gallery was made up of your standard-issue Joes: Lot of junior-varsity beer guts--that in another five years were going to be state champs. Patriots and Red Sox hats only. Couple of Chelmsford High School sweatshirts.

When the influx became just a trickle, he was ready to curse. Maybe he should have infiltrated the damn jail--although that would have been complicated. Lot of eyes, and even though he could pull off the not-there, if he had to kill somebody or save someone? He'd make any audience schizoid and probably show up in a blurry "Aliens Exist!" article in the National Enquirer --

A lone man emerged from the ring of trees. He was huge and the black windbreaker he wore did absolutely nothing to shrink the size of his shoulders. As he approached, he walked like the soldier he'd been trained to be, swinging his gaze around and keeping both hands in his pockets--likely gripping one or maybe two guns.

"Hello, Isaac . . ." As soon as the name left his lips, Jim was struck by a powerful, inescapable pull that made the man not just a target, but a destination.

The original plan had been to find the guy and throw him on a plane out of the country with some resources--just to help him along his way.

Now, though, he realized he needed to do more than that.

Chalking up the sea change to seeing Rothe for the first time since that night in the desert, Jim did not run up to the guy or shout his name or do anything that would spook the f**ker. Instead, he summoned illumination to himself, calling it out of the darkness by agitating the molecules around his body.

He made sure his hands were up and his palms were empty. And that Isaac was the only one who saw him.

Isaac's head snapped around. And a nasty-looking gun appeared from out of that windbreaker.

Jim didn't move and just shook his head, the universal sign for "I'm not here to cap your ass."

When Isaac finally came forward, he took no chances. As he stepped up, another gun came out of a pocket to hang discreetly at his side. Both weapons had silencers and blended in with his black track pants.

For a moment, the pair of them just stared at each other like a couple of idiots, and Jim had an absurd impulse to hug the motherfucker--although he doused that quick. One, there was no reason to be a nancy. And two, it would likely get him shot at point-blank range: XOps soldiers weren't snugglers --unless they planned on killing someone.

"Hey," Jim said roughly.

Isaac cleared his throat. Twice. "What are you doing here?"

"Just passing through. Thought I'd take you to dinner."

That got a slow smile, the kind that smacked of the past. "Payback?"

"Yeah." Jim's eyes traced the rear lot and saw only a couple of stragglers. "You could call it that."

"I thought you were out."

"I am."

"So . . ." When Jim didn't immediately answer, the guy's icy eyes grew shrewd. "He sent you to kill me. Didn't he."

"I needed a favor and it was expensive."

"So why are we talking?"

"I don't take orders from Matthias anymore."

Isaac frowned. "Stupid ass. He's going to hunt you now, too. Unless you blow my head off here and now."

Jim put his cigarette between his teeth and held his palms out. "I'm unarmed. Pat me down."

It was entirely unsurprising that Isaac disappeared one of his guns, and with his free hand, did a quick review of Jim's territory.

That frown rode the guy's brow even harder. "What the f**k are you thinking."

"Right now? Oh . . . let's see, that you should not be fighting in there, for starters. After all, I'm assuming you're not here as part of the popcorn-and- Raisinets set. Instead, I want you to come with me and let me help you get out of the country safely."

Isaac's voice was ancient as he shook his head. "You know I can't trust you. I'm sorry, man. But I can't."

Fucking hell.

Bottom line, though, was you couldn't fault the reasoning: In XOps, even when you were on assignments with your compadres, it was each man for himself. Decide to leave the fold? If you were smart, you wouldn't put your life or your faith in your own mother's hands.

Jim took a drag and focused on the other man's face, feeling that burning drive in his chest get hotter. Hard to explain the "why" of it . . . but he couldn't pull out now that he'd found Isaac. Even if that compromised his battle with Devina. Even if Isaac didn't want his help. Even if it put himself in danger.

Isaac Rothe had to be saved.

"I'm sorry," he heard himself say. "But I need to help you. And you're going to let me."

The other man's eyes narrowed into slits. "Excuse me?"

Jim glanced over to the door. Adrian and Eddie had reappeared and . . . the two of them were looking like this was all supposed to happen. As if they had known all along that Isaac would show up here. And Jim would talk to the guy. And . . .

On a quick tilt of the head, Jim regarded the dark heavens, and thought about the way his first assignment had gone: no coincidences in any of the chain of events. Everyone and everything he'd met up with had woven into his task. And golly gee-fuckin'-whiz, it was so not hard to imagine that Matthias was playing on Devina's team. The guy had done evil wherever he went, perpetrating acts of violence and deceit that had both shaped the world on a global scale as well as altered private lives forever.

Jim refocused on Isaac. Maybe being so damned committed to this AWOL soldier wasn't just a page out of his past . . . Hell, Nigel, his new boss, hadn't seemed easygoing in the slightest--and yet the archangel had rolled over the instant Jim had announced he was going after Isaac: Not the kind of thing that you did if you were team captain and your quarterback started running for your own goal line.

Exactly the kind of thing you did if your boy was right where you wanted him.

Holy shit . . . Isaac was his next assignment.

Man, that shit he'd pulled over his own corpse at the funeral home was going to prove to be a stroke of genius.

"You're going to need me," he pronounced.

"I can take care of myself."

As Isaac went to leave, Jim snagged his arm. "You know you can't do this alone. Don't be an ass**le."

There was a long moment.

"What are you thinking, Jim." The guy's pale eyes were haunted. "You were out. You were free. You were the one who got away. Why would you go back into the hellhole?"

Jim led with a logic that the other man could believe in--and something that was also the truth; just not the only one. "I owe you. You know that. I owe you for that night."

Jim Heron was exactly as Isaac remembered him: big, jacked, and nothing but business. The blue eyes were the same, the blond hair was still mostly buzzed off, the face was freshly shaven as always. He even had a Marlboro quietly smoldering in his hand.

But there was something a little different, some kind of vibe that was just . . . off, though not in a bad way.

Maybe the lucky bastard had taken to actually sleeping at night, as opposed to keeping a gun in his palm and waking up at every sound.

God, when he'd heard Heron had pulled out of XOps, he'd never expected to see the man again--either because Matthias rethought the soldier's bye- bye-birdie card and put a bullet into his think tank or because Jim wisely stayed away from anyone and anything that had to do with his former life.

And yet here he was.

As Isaac stared into the guy's eyes, he found himself believing, as much as he could, that Heron had come to help because of that debt created in the land of sand and sun. Besides, if the SOB had wanted Isaac dead, that would have happened long before any of this conversating had gotten rolling.