Perfect. Right out of House Beautiful.
The mansion's sole redeeming attribute, at least that he could figure, was the dour exterior: With dead vines crawling over its face and the cockeyed shutters and twelve kinds of glaring overhangs, the vibe suggested that whoever was inside might eat you alive. Plus the grounds were nothing but a couple of acres' worth of brambles, spiky underbrush, and soon-to-be poison ivy to fight through.
Wouldn't do a damn thing against Devina's minions, but would defo keep the idiot teenagers away.
"Where are you ...?" He stared up at the ceiling. "Come on, bitch."
His demon opponent was not known for being patient--and he'd been waiting for a response for how long?
As he stabbed out his butt, the colorful flag across the way was a glaring reminder of how his newest tactic might have gone sour. In the game between good and evil, where he was the quarterback interacting with the seven souls on deck, and Devina, the whorish demon, and Nigel, the archangel with the stick up his ass, were "captains" of the teams, Jim was solidly ahead. Or rather, he'd put the good guys in front three to one. All it was going to take was one more victory--one more soul teased into choosing good over evil at a crossroads in his or her existence--and he had saved not just the world, but the afterlife, as well. And yeah, victory looked pretty much like you'd think it would: Not only could all the humans on the planet continue to go about their days, but the moral God-fearers who had passed Go, collected two hundred, and entered Heaven's Manse of Souls, were safe for eternity.
Like, for example, his own mother, who'd been raped and murdered--may she rest in peace--could stay right where she was.
All things considered, he should feel pretty damned good about where he and his remaining wingman, Adrian, were.
He did not.
Fucking Devina. That demon had something he wanted, something that didn't belong in her viscous prison of the damned. And thanks to all his military training and experience, the tactician in him had come up with a plan: Give him the innocent, and he would turn over one of his wins to the demon. Fair trade--and legal under the rules of the game. Those victory flags were his possessions--Nigel had told him that himself. And when it came to your possessions, you could do whatever you wanted with them.
Which was why eBay and frickin' craigslist existed. Duh.
He'd expected the demon to bitch and moan about things--but he'd been so damned certain that ultimately she'd jump at the chance. Yeah, sure, according to Adrian she was nutty about her stuff, but this was the war--and if she won? She got to take over everything; Hell would literally come unto the Earth.
Instead? After he'd made his offer, she'd told him she'd think about it.
Like it was a fucking pair of shoes or something? Come on. WTF.
Getting to his feet, Jim stalked around the room, disturbing the fine layer of dust that covered the floorboards. When the inevitable creaking got on his nerves, he headed into the bathroom out in the hall.
Talk about your bed & breakfast fantasies gone bad. The rose-patterned wallpaper had faded until there was nothing but a shadow of color left--probably better that way, considering all that estrogen-drenched-decor crap made him scratch. The ornate mirror over the sink was cracked and had liver spots across its reflective face, so when you looked at yourself, you got an eyeball full of where you were headed when you hit seventy. And the floor was a forget-about-it stretch of chipped marble.
But come on, he'd showered in so much worse.
Going over to the claw-footed tub, he supposed the thing might have been romantic if, one, he'd been into that shit, which he wasn't, and two, it hadn't been stained yellow on the inside from mineral deposits, and green on the outside from the copper feet. And then there was the noise. As he cranked the once-gold-leafed handles on, the cold side let out a scream, like the pipes were not happy about pulling chilly stuff in from the main line in the street.
The water that came out of the corroded showerhead was more a drool than any kind of spray, but over the last two days, it had proven capable of soaping him up and rinsing him off. Dropping trou, he stepped under the cold dribble and reached for the soap.
His body wasn't particularly bothered by the fact that there was no warmth. God knew, during his career in XOps, he'd done a hell of a lot worse to it. Sudsing himself up, he passed his palms over all kinds of scars, from old stab wounds, to bullet and shrapnel aftermath, to a couple of surgeries that had been performed in combat zones--except for that one that had been done in a bedroom in Paris.
"Where are you ... Devina ..." FFS, she was going to do his nut in.
Which was crazy. During his twenty-year career as a shadow assassin for the U.S. government, you'd think he'd be used to this: War had a rhythm that was counterintuitive. There were long stretches of inactivity and waiting--interspersed with great explosions of life-or-death, keep-it-tight-or-get-jacked drama.
Usually he handled the lulls better.
Not anymore, apparently.
Although, granted, the stakes were higher than anything ever wagered on his performance before. He won? Hell was nothing but a morality play that didn't have a stage anymore.
So maybe he should have just cooled his heels for one more round, taken a fourth win, and then the innocents would have been free, and everything would have game over'd in a good way.
The trouble was, he didn't know whether Sissy Barten would survive that. The girl was trapped down below in that wall--and if Hell was destroyed, wouldn't she go poof! with it? Or did she get a pass because her soul was clean?
He didn't know, and he couldn't take a chance on that ... so he waited for Devina's response.
And had to wonder what the demon was cooking up--
Brilliant light exploded into the bathroom, blinding him so badly that he dropped the soap to cover his eyes with his hands.
He knew who it was--even before an aristocratic English voice cut through the anemic shower.
"Have you lost all your wits!" Nigel, the archangel, demanded.
Great. Just what he was looking for.
A confron with the boss.
Adrian's first clue that all was not well in Casa d'Angel was the illumination that cut in around the closed door to his bedroom. Bleeding through the jambs like the detonation flash of a car bomb, it could only be explained by a visit of the archangel variety.
Either that or that crap-ass stove downstairs in the kitchen had spontaneously combusted.
Getting off the bed, he limped to the door naked and opened things up so he could get a gander at the drama.
"... not interested--so fucking not interested..."
As Jim marched out of the loo with a towel around his hips and water dripping off his hair, his voice was deep and low, like a rattlesnake giving a warning.
Nigel wasn't impressed. The boss man from Up Above was tight on the other angel's balls, the English-accented dandy looking like he was on his way to the symphony: White tie seemed a little formal for the ass kicking that was rolling out. Although it was after dark.
La-di-frickin'-daaaaa.
Neither of them seemed to notice as Ad leaned back on his doorjamb and Milk Dudded the show. Then again, any kind of third-wheel routine was way down on the list of their priorities.
"... did you think you can just give away a win?" Nigel bit out as they went into Jim's room, his accent sharpening the syllables into knives. "You have no right-- Dear God, is that the flag?!"
Adrian whistled under his breath. The last time he'd heard that tone come out of that otherwise proper mouth?
He and Eddie had spent a century or two in Purgatory.
Fun, fun.
Jim's gauge was still hitting high on the fuck-ya meter, however. "My possession, right? They're mine--you told me that yourself. So I can--"
The slap that resonated out of the open door made Ad wince.
"That's your free shot," Jim growled. "Next time you do that? I'm going to kill you."
"I'm not alive,
you fool. And you are putting everything at risk."
"How do you know what I'm doing with the goddamn flag."
"You're giving it to her. For whatever reason I cannot discern. In fact, I cannot fathom what could possibly be as valuable as your being one win away from victory."
Adrian repositioned his weight off his bad leg and shook his head. Okaaaaay. Not aware that Jim was tampering with things on this kind of level. But he knew who it was about.
Sissy Barten.
"Fuck," Ad muttered as the math added up. "Fuuuuck."
"Nigel, welcome to reality," Jim spat, "you are not in control here."
"Have you no thought of your mother!"
There was a beat of silence. "You think that's your ace in the hole? My leash to bring me back to your yard?"
"Forgive me for making the assumption that you might care about her eternal salvation."
As the pair of them argued, swiping insults and getting angrier, the grandfather clock on the stairwell landing began to chime.
But hadn't it just gone off?
One, two, three...
That thing creeped him the fuck out.
... four, five, six...
Such hostile voices going back and forth, the pair of them like two wolves circling. And meanwhile, somewhere in Caldwell, a soul was in play--and Devina knew who it was.
But Jim did not.
Adrian rubbed his eyes and tried to refocus them. Getting used to having only half his vision was taking time, the flat plane of landscape screwing with his depth perception, his sense of where he was in space, the arrangement of his limbs.
... seven, eight, nine...
This stuff with the flag was bad juju: Jim takes a win down off the wall without telling Nigel? There was only one reason for that ... the guy was going to try to trade it for Sissy's soul.
This was out of control. The whole goddamn thing.
... ten, eleven, twelve...
Adrian glared across the second-floor foyer, at that old clock on the staircase's landing. "Go on, do it, you fucking--"
The thirteenth chime that followed sure as hell felt as if the thing had flipped him off. And as the mournful sound faded, the argument raged on, Nigel and Jim locked into a rhythm where they were just emoting, neither of them listening to the other.
And as they wasted this energy? The game was continuing: Although there were parallels to football, there were no time-outs in this seven-round war between good and evil. And from the way things were just going in Jim's room? The savior wasn't giving in or seeing the light; he was just going to do whatever he damn well pleased.
His attention wasn't on the war. It was on Sissy--and it was going to stay that way.
And Nigel's focus? It was on wanting to beat the crap out of Jim.
Devina, however, was no doubt moving forward, circling around the soul even though she wasn't supposed to...
The solution Ad came up with was radical and had a poor likelihood of success, but what else could he do?
The two bigger players on the team were at each other's throats--and there was no better predictor for an enemy's success than that kind of divided attention.
Going into his room, he pulled on some clothes, sat on his bed, and gripped his knees. As he closed his eyes, he sent out a request, the paranormal equiv of a page.
It took about two seconds to receive the summoning he was looking for.
Which meant Colin, the archangel, knew exactly why Nigel had gone earthbound--and was no happier about shit than Ad was.
Chapter
Three
Victoria Beckham.
That's who the stylist reminded her of, Cait thought as Pablo shampooed the color out of her hair. And that wasn't an insult. It was the guy's black hair, sharp cheekbones, and the thin legs. And that posing/pouty thing he did with one hip out.
"Okay, sitz ups fer us."
Cait followed instructions, pulling her head out of the washing sink. Everything that was wet was immediately captured in a towel wrap, and then she was up on her feet, heading back to the chair.
"Noes oo lovf zis," Pablo announced as she sat down.
Guess he was saying that she was going to love it?
The strange thing about that accent was that it moved around, distorting different vowels and consonants in different ways, the lack of consistency suggesting he was either posing or had an intermittent speech impediment.
As for what her opinion was going to be...
He unfurled the towel, and everything flopped onto her shoulders.
It was impossible to tell what was what. Sure, there were some lighter parts, but considering all the foils he'd folded onto her head, she expected a hell of a lot more.
Pablo pulled open the top drawer of the stand-up cupboard by his mirror and took out a square brush the size of a cutting board. Palming his hair dryer, he began fanning things out and running the hot air underneath.
"Ve dry frst und ten ve cut, cut, cut ..."
Man, his eyes were dark as he worked. Not so much brown as black.
Looking into the mirror, she squirmed. This was such a dumb idea: Those three tubs of color with their separate paintbrushes? She could come out red, white, and blue for all she knew. And the hour it took for him to stripe down those tinfoil strips and origami them up against her scalp? Never getting that back. And the cost--four hundred dollars?
Maybe she was more like her parents than her chronic rebellion suggested. Because this excursion into vanity seemed like a waste on too many levels to count.
Plus she was going to have to keep it up--
"Oh ... wow," she said slowly as she turned her head.
The section he'd been working on was ... really beautiful. Now dry and straight, her hair was the color it had been during her childhood, what appeared to be a hundred different shades of blond weaving in and out of the thick, shiny strands.
"Ive toll youz," Pablo said. Or something to that effect.
And the more her hair dried out, the better it got--except then there was a pair of scissors in his hand.
"Are you sure we have to do anything?" she asked, as the blades flashed in the overhead lighting.
"Oh, chess."
Wow, she really couldn't place that accent of his.
Things started flying at that point, his hands spinning around her head, those sharp scissors slicing into her hair, pieces falling to the floor like feathers from a flushed bird. It looked as if she was getting layers--oh, God, bangs ... she now had bangs...
Cait closed her eyes. Color could be corrected with some Clairol back home. This stuff? It was going to take a year to grow out. The trouble was, she was on the ride--no getting off in the middle of the roller coaster.
What had she done to herself...?
A tickle lit off on the back of her hand and she cracked an eyelid. A section of her hair had landed on her wrist, the three-inch length curling ever so slightly at the end. Taking it in between her fingers, she rubbed the smooth strands together.
Blond. Very blond.
When Pablo said something, she could only nod, her emotions bubbling up in her chest and distracting her from the outside world. The desperate edge to all this transformation business was not something she could ignore, not while she was busy getting turned into Veronica Lake. Not while she was paying so much for something that was entirely superficial.
Bottom line, unfortunately, was that it was so much easier to address defects in your appearance, and your car, and your apartment, than it was to dig deep and take a good hard look at your choices, your mistakes ... your faults.
Like, for example, how playing it safe all your life had landed you in a prison of your own making.
The music track abruptly ended, as if the speakers had clocked out for the night, and in the silence, Pablo swapped the blades for something that looked like a curling iron, except it had two heated plates.
Straightener, she thought it was called. And the fact that she wasn't one hundred percent s
ure on that made her feel her isolation from the world even further.
A rhythmic tugging started up as Pablo pulled the wand down her hair, over and over again. And as he worked his way around her head, she had too much space to think, too much time to stare at the blond strand she held.
As tears speared into her eyes, she cleared her throat. At least authorities had found Sissy Barten's body ... so those parents of hers had something to bury.
What a waste. What a further reminder that you have to live while you can--because you never knew when the ride was over.
"Look at vat vee haff."
Pablo spun her about to face the mirror, except for a moment she couldn't look away from what was in her hand. But then she lifted her eyes and...
"Oh ... wow," she whispered.
Soft, shimmering waves fell from the crown of her head, the frizziness gone, the new highlights popping out, the length not much different at all.
Pablo's accent got rolling as he described the weight he'd taken off, and how that had freed her hair to express itself more completely. Blah, blah, blah--it was just vocabulary she let wash over her. What she paid attention to was how much younger she looked. Or maybe it was more ... feminine? Vibrant?
This was some serious butterfly shit, as her brother would have called it.
She glanced down at the hair between her fingers, and let the strands fall to the ground. There was no rewind button you could punch, no going back ... only ever forward. She had learned that when she was twelve, her first grown-up lesson at a very young age.
And Sissy's death had recently reminded her of that fact.
"My hair is ... perfect," she heard herself say.
Cue the smiles from Pablo.
After he whipped the cape off her shoulders, she went back to the dressing room, put her clothes on, and got another load of whoa. Her hair elevated the black slacks and simple sweater to something that might have come from Saks. Even her red Coach bag took a step up, looking downright Italian all of a sudden.
As she walked out of the dressing room to pay, she felt like she had television-commercial hair, the kind that bounced with every step, and shined under even low lighting, and made men and women stop short.
At the reception desk, she got out her checkbook, and felt her eyes bulge even though she'd known how much this was going to cost.