Crave (Fallen Angels 2)

Isaac rolled up behind another unmarked that had to be Matthias's car. A K-turn later and he was facing out. Taking the keys with him, he jogged along the fringes of the lawn, his senses alive, his rage an inferno in his blood.

Matthias would die if he laid even a finger on Grier. One hair out of place on that woman and that bastard was going to get slaughtered.

As he approached the house, he searched out the doors. The front was open and he couldn't see the back.

But then what did it matter--he was expected. And on that note, he should just f**k the DL ninja shit and announce himself.

Coming up to the farmhouse's entrance, he kept his guns hidden and his eyes sharp as he curled up a fist and beat at the wooden jamb.

"Matthias," he called out.

As he stepped inside, the resounding silence was more terrifying than any scream or pool of blood. Because God only knew what he was walking into.

Jim had had a plan as he and the angels had flashed to Grier's father's place. He hadn't wanted to leave Isaac on his own back in town, but all they would have done was argue, and God knew the canny bastard could take care of himself.

Bottom line, Devina was playing deadly games, and that was something only Jim could deal with. And having a delay before Isaac arrived might not be a bad thing: If Matthias had done anything to that Grier woman, the soldier was going to be impossible to control.

Yup, as Jim landed and went gunning for the open door of the farmhouse with his wingmen in tow, he was prepared to take care of things.

Nigel, however, derailed him.

The archangel appeared right in his path, and this time he wasn't in his tuxedo or his croquet whites or a nice little dapper-ass seersucker: He was nothing but a glowing form, a wavy silhouette of rippling light.

And he spoke only one word: "No."

As Jim hauled up on his momentum, he would have punched the f**ker if there had been anything solid to aim for. "What the f**k is the matter with you!" First the mislead over Isaac and now this? "The die is cast." Nigel lifted his barely-there hand. "And if you intervene now, you will ultimately lose."

Jim pointed through the open door. "There's a man's soul at risk."

File that under: No, really, you supercilious little prick.

Nigel's voice got dark. "As if I was unaware of that."

"If I can get to Matthias--"

"You had the chance--"

"I didn't know it was him! This is bullshit!"

"That is nothing I can change. But I tell you, let the ending happen--"

"Oh, you can't change anything, but you can get in the way now? Great f**king timing!" Jim was damned well aware that his voice was blaring, but he had no trouble announcing his presence to Devina or anybody else.

"Fuck this, I'm going in--"

On a quick shimmer, Nigel's form blanketed him from head to foot, the illumination acting as a kind of glue that held him in place. And then that English voice was not just in his ear but through his whole brain.

"What is the truer course? The passionate or the rational? Think, Jim. Think. If one breaks the rules, a punishment flows. Think this through. If one breaks the rules, punishment flows. Think, damn you!"

Rage clouded his mind and shook his body until he thought he would come apart . . . but then suddenly, lightning hit marble head and he realized what the archangel was trying to tell him.

If one breaks the rules . . . punishment flows.

"That's right, Jim. Take this to its natural conclusion--beyond this night. And know that you shall go farther in this game if you use your head rather than your anger. Please, I implore you, trust in me in this regard."

Easing up his muscles, Jim felt a curious calm overtake him and he turned his head through the molasses Nigel had created.

Looking at Adrian and Eddie as they ran up, he saw that they were every bit as pissed off as he was. Which given what Nigel was saying wasn't a value add.

"Trust me, Jim," Nigel said. "I want to win as badly as you do. I am not without my own burdens of lost loved ones. I too would do aught that it takes to render them a peaceful eternity. Think not that I would e'er steer you upon a wrong course."

Jim shook his head at his boys.

"Let it go," Jim said to them. "We're going to stay on the sidelines. We stay out here."

As his comrades looked at him like he was out of his cocksucking head, he couldn't agree more. It was going to kill him to not go in there, but he got the picture . . . and he was ultimately glad the archangel intervened. Thanks to Devina's making fast and loose with the rules, the best shot Matthias had was Jim staying the f**k out of this.

Even though it went against every instinct he had.

After a moment, Nigel slowly extricated himself, and his magical illumination gradually dispersed. In its absence, Jim fell to his knees on the grass, his eyes locked on the open door of the clapboard house as Adrian and Eddie started to go off on him, demanding an explanation for the halt order.

Around the fringes of his mind and emotions, the urge to fly into the path of whatever Devina had engineered still tantalized him.

Especially as he thought of Isaac's woman in the hands of Matthias--

Oh, God . . . Rothe was going to be sacrificed, wasn't he.

Jim's hands sought out the earth and he dug into the lawn with his fingers, holding his body in place.

Bowing his head, he prayed that his faith was well placed and good would, eventually, prevail. But the sad fact was, doing the right thing was going to be the death of a man who didn't deserve to die tonight.

Chapter Forty-eight

Matthias had things with the Childes all tied up well before he expected Isaac to come tooling through the front door.

After he'd stun-gunned her, he'd discovered that picking Grier off the floor and putting her into a chair required more strength than he had--so he left her where she lay, tying her legs and wrists up with some duct tape he found in Alistair's pantry.

And as for her father?

No clue what had made the man open the way in and stand there in a trance, but the distraction and space-cadet routine had been perfectly timed. Matthias had been able to walk up right behind the guy and put a gun to his head.

So yeah, getting him to sit in a chair in the kitchen had been a piece of cake; he'd all but bound his own hands and feet.

Which had been helpful, given that Matthias's chest hurt so badly he could barely breathe.

And now, it was just a case of waiting for Isaac, all three of them together in this house with the door wide open.

There was a groan and then a shift on the floor as Grier Childe started to come around. She had a moment of confusion, as if trying to figure out why she was lying on the hardwood and why she couldn't open her mouth. And then she jerked in a full-body spasm, her eyes peeling wide and locking on him.

"Wakey-wakey," he said gruffly, giving her a nod as her father started to fight against his bonds and make muffled noises under the duct tape across his mouth.

Matthias leveled his gun muzzle at the guy's head. "Shut it."

There wasn't anyone around to hear, but the distress and the struggle pricked Matthias's nerves. In fact, as he stood between the two, he was far from the calm, master-of-all-he-surveyed guy he'd always been in the past: He was in great pain. He was exhausted. And he felt that what was about to happen next was predestined, but not something he would have chosen.

He was utterly out of control and totally locked in at the same time.

With the eyes of both Childes on him and everyone quiet again, he braced himself against the counter, his creaky body protesting at the shift in position.

"You know what pisses me off about you," he said to Alistair. "I saved the good one." He nodded down at Grier. "I could have left you with that son of yours. But no, I took the broken one--put your dear Danny boy out of his misery and yours."

He could remember being surprised at his own thought process at the time. It was much more characteristic of him to take the one that would have hurt worse, but he'd gone a different way at that crossroads.

Maybe he'd started to change before he'd ordered the death. Who knew.

Who cared.

He was too far down for saving, and his conversation with Jim over the phone had shown him, instead of the possibilities for his redemption, the reality of his condemnation. It was time to end this . . . and go out with a bang.

Only this time, get it right.

At that moment, Isaac Rothe appeared in the archway of the kitchen. His eyes went to Grier first, and not even his stoic self-possession could hide his stark fear.