Crave (Fallen Angels 2)

The truth of it was: He owed Rothe. Back in the desert two years ago, when Jim had needed help, the man had been there for him, and that was a debt you didn't walk away from.

It was also probably why Matthias had given Jim the assignment. The f**ker was well aware of their connection and of what had transpired that night on the other side of the globe: At the time, their boss might have been in and out of consciousness, but he'd tracked enough during those dark hours of transport and flight and medical intervention to know who was around and what was doing.

Right. Focus. Where were the stiffs?

"Downstairs," he said to his boys as he strode over to an Exit sign.

On the way to the stairwell, the three of them walked past all manner of motion detectors without setting the things off, and then they ghosted through a closed door one by one.

Bringing Adrian and Eddie on this little excursion was safer, because God knew Devina could be anywhere at any moment--plus Jim was still learning all the tricks that came with being a fallen angel, and Eddie was the master at them. Spells, potions, magic--that wizard and wand shit was Blackhawk's forte.

He'd clearly gotten his PhD in Abracadabra and didn't that make the SOB handy.

Down on the cellar level, everything was stark and clean, the cement floor and walls painted gray. The sweet smell of embalming fluid drew Jim to the right, and as he strode along, he felt like he'd jumped back in time. Fucking weird. This sneaking-around routine was exactly what he'd excelled at for all those years with Matthias--and precisely what he'd been determined to get away from.

Yeah, well, all the best-laid plans of mice and men, yada, yada, yada . . .

In his first battle with Devina, he'd required some information--and Matthias the Fucker had been the only place to go for it. Naturally, when it came to that bastard, things were strictly quid pro quo, so if you wanted something, you had to give something and the "quo" had been killing Isaac. After all, there were no pink slips for the fired or gold Rolexes for the retired in XOps--you got a bullet in the head and, if you were lucky, maybe a coffin for your corpse.

And yet he was curiously grateful: Being assigned to assassinate the guy was the only way to help him; otherwise there would have been no way to know that Isaac had taken off and was now a hunted man: Jim was the only one who'd been let out free and clear.

But then his situation had put the "by your short hairs" in Matthias's "extenuating circumstances."

He stopped in front of a pair of stainless-steel doors marked STAFF ONLY and looked over his shoulder. "Keep your hands to yourself, Adrian."

God knew the angel seemed willing to f**k anything that moved--which made you wonder if not moving would be a rate-limiting step for him. With a curse, Adrian went all holier-than-thou. "I only touch if they ask."

"What a relief."

"But you know, reanimation is possible."

"Not tonight it isn't. And certainly not in this place."

"Man, you could suck the fun out of a strip club."

"Pass."

Ghosting into the large, clinical room, it was damn obvious why horror movies used morgues for settings. Between the green security lighting, the rolling gurneys, and the drains in the floor, the place was the perfect backdrop for a case of the heebs.

Even though he'd died and gone to heaven and all that crap, his adrenal glands still waved its flag well enough. Then again, the twitches were probably less about the other dead guys and more about the fact that he was going to look his own corpse in the face.

As he headed for the massive refrigerator unit, with its rows of cold flats, he knew exactly what he was doing. When he didn't kill Isaac on schedule, two things were going to happen: Someone else would and somebody would be sent out looking for Jim.

And that was the reason they were here. His old boss was going to want to make sure Jim had bought the farm, so to speak: Matthias didn't believe in death certificates, autopsy reports, or photographs because he knew all too well how easy it was to fake that kind of documentation. He also didn't trust funerals, burial sites, or weeping widows and mothers, because he'd substituted too many bodies one for another over the years. Face-to-face verification was the only way to be sure in his book.

Usually Matthias sent his second in command to do the double-check, but Jim was going to make certain the big man himself was the one to do it in this case. The bastard was hard to flush out of hiding, and Jim needed his own face time with the guy.

The only way to make that happen was to use his own frozen ass as a lure.

And a little of Eddie's magic.

Checking the nameplates set into the holders on the front of the doors, he found himself between D'Arterio, Agnes, and Rutherford, James.

Flipping the latch, he opened the three-foot-by-two-foot door . . . and pulled his dead body out of the refrigerator. There was a sheet covering him from head to foot, and his arms had been neatly tucked in by his sides. The air that wafted out of his hole was cold and dry and smelled like antifreeze.

Man, as many stiffs as he'd seen over his violent and bloody life, this skeeved him out.

"Give me my marching orders," he said to Eddie grimly.

"Do you have the summoning object?" the angel asked, coming to stand on the other side.

Jim reached into his pocket and took out a small piece of wood that had been carved many, many years before in the tropics on the far side of the planet. He and Matthias had not always been at odds and Matthias hadn't always been the boss.

And back when they'd both been grunts on the floor level of XOps, Jim had taught the guy how to whittle.

The miniature horse was done with surprising competence, considering it had been the first and only thing Matthias had carved. If memory served, it had taken about two hours--which was why it was being used: Apparently, inanimate objects did more than just collect dust. They were sponges for the essence of whoever owned or made or used them, and what lingered in the space between the molecules was very useful if you knew what to do with it.

Jim held the horse up. "Now what."

Eddie whipped the sheet off Jim's gray, mottled face. For a moment, it was hard to concentrate on anything but what he looked like forty-eight hours dead. Holy hell, the Grim Reaper was no makeup artist; that was for sure. Even Goths had better complexions.

"Hey, don't be harshing on my peeps," Adrian cut in. "I'd do one of us way before some SoCal bimbo with plastic melons and a spray tan."

"Stop reading my mind, motherfucker. And you'd do the bimbo anyway."

Adrian grinned and flexed his heavy arms. "Yeah. I would. And her sister."

Yup, that angel appeared to be over whatever the demon Devina had done to him the night of Jim's official "death." Either that or all the self-medicating with living, breathing Barbies had exhausted any introspection right out of him.

Eddie took a metal file from his pocket and presented it handle first. "Grate some of that carving onto the body. Anywhere is fine."

Jim chose the flat pads of his chest, and the scraping sounds were soft in the tiled cavern of the cold room.

Eddie took the tool back. "Where's your knife?"

Jim took out the hunting blade that had been given to him way back when he'd first joined the armed services. Matthias had gotten an identical weapon at the same time--had used it to carve the horse, matter of fact.

"Slice your palm and hold the object hard. As you do, picture the person you want to come here clearly in your mind. Remember the sound of his voice. See him in memories that are specific. Watch how he moves, the gestures he makes, the clothes he wears, the smell of his cologne if he uses it."

Forcing his head to focus, Jim tried to call up something, anything, about Matthias the Fucker. . . .

The image that dove into his frontal lobe was stunningly clear: He was back in the desert on that night, with the chemical stink of the explosive in his nose and the ringing sound of time-to-get-a-move-on banging in his ears. Matthias had no lower leg, his left eye was nearly gone from the socket, and his digital fatigues were covered with pale dirt and bright red blood.

". . . Dan . . . ny . . . boy . . . my Danny boy . . ." he was saying.

Jim put the blade to the center of his palm and dragged it through his skin, letting out a hiss as the steel bit deep and clean.

Eddie's voice cut through the memory and the icy pain. "Now take your palm and rub it on the wood shavings. Then get out your lighter and fire it up. Lifting your hand, blow across it into the flame and onto the body, keeping that picture in your mind."