Fallen Angels 03 - Envy (22 page)

He knew Eddie liked the hookups better if he was there. That angel trusted no one, and sex was better if you felt safer. Granted, the guy never completely let go, but he was more likely to relax a little if Ad was around, and looking up into the mirror over the sink, he watched his friend. Eddie had bitten down on his lower lip and closed his eyes, his head fal ing back, his heavy braid swinging as he held on to the doorjamb and the wal on the other side to keep his balance.

It was getting time for another orgasm. Ad knew his buddy’s body as wel as he knew his own, so he stopped the furious in-and-out and gripped Eddie’s erection, pumping it off as the female waited for the payload like a porn star, mouth open, puffy lips licked in anticipation.

Sometime between the stroking and when the female’s face got glossed, Ad felt Devina leave the club. And it wasn’t a mirage. Her physical presence was not fakeable.

But she lingered, anyway.

As Eddie panted in recovery, the female on her knees ran her fingers over her cheeks and brought them into her mouth. Sucking them in, she dropped her lids and stared up at Adrian, al wouldja-do-me.

Staring down at her, he tried to draw in a breath, but there was a weight on his chest that refused to be budged, and for some reason, the only thing he could see was the tail end of al that fake black hair of hers pooling on the dirty bathroom tile.

Her frantic, sex-starved eyes belied her fragility: There was a lost soul behind her desperate stare, an emptiness that reminded him too much of himself.

Up above her, there was a paper towel dispenser stuck to the wal , its offering like a tongue lol ing out of its dul silver head.

Taking her chin in his palm, he held her face with care and snapped a white towel free. With careful strokes, he cleaned off her delicate, pale skin.

“Not tonight,” he said hoarsely. “Not tonight, baby girl.”

She blinked first in confusion, and then in sadness. But that was what happened when you were forced to stop and see yourself clearly: Not al mirrors were made of glass, and you didn’t always need your reflection to take a good, hard look at yourself. The truth was something you wore sure as the suit of flesh that bound and gagged your soul until you were set free, and you couldn’t ignore it forever.

Leaning forward, he snagged her bustier from the sink’s counter, and like a child she held her arms up so that he could bind her naked breasts.

In attending to her, he felt as though he were taking care of the most broken part of himself . . . and al the while, Eddie played witness with his red eyes.

“Go on, now,” Adrian said when he’d done up the last of the fasteners. “Go home . . . wherever that is.”

She left on unsteady feet, but not because of the sex or the drinking, and as the door shut, Adrian settled back on the loo, put his hands on his thighs, and stared at the floor.

I’m inside you, Adrian. I’m right in there, wrapped around your heart.

It was a strange night to realize his disease, but then, as was probably typical, when you lived with something a long time, you got used to the symptoms that told you what you had was fatal.

He had the cancer. In him. It had started growing long ago, this tumor no one could see. He’d let Devina in that first time he’d bartered something of himself for something he needed in the war, and she’d been taking over ever since then, inch by inch.

He had nothing to pul him out of the oblivion that was coming for him, not even Eddie.

And damn them al , she was doing exactly the same thing with Jim.

Looking up at his best friend, he heard himself say, “I’m dying, Eddie.”

Eddie’s tan skin went gray, but he said nothing. Hel , no doubt the only surprise to the guy was that Ad actual y brought it up.

“I’m not going to live to see the end of this war.” Ad cleared his throat. “I’m just . . . not going to make it.”

A
s Reil y pul ed her unmarked into the driveway of a nice-looking clapboard colonial, Veck ran his hand across his jaw and wished he’d had time to hit a razor before they’d left HQ. Then again, a five-o’clock shadow was the least of his problems. He was wel aware he had bags under his eyes and was sporting a lot of lines that he hadn’t remembered from even a week before.

He glanced over at his partner. “Thank you for this.”

She smiled in such an open and honest way that he was momentarily immobilized: Reil y was definitely not one of those women who needed drugstore crap on her face to get a glow on—it was al about who she was inside, not what was up with her cheeks and her eyelashes. And this expression? Pretty much made him weak in the knees.

He knew the reason for the radiance, too. He had a feeling it was because she loved where they were and who they were going to eat with: the farther away they’d gotten from work, and the closer to this house they’d become, the lighter and more delighted she’d appeared.

“Have your parents lived here long?” he asked as they got out.

“Al my life.” She looked around at the big oak in the yard and the little white fence at the sidewalk and the cherry red mailbox. “It was an awesome place to grow up. I could walk to school through my backyard, and there were half a dozen of us al in the same grade within a six-block radius. And, you know, my dad was superintendent of schools—stil is—so I felt like he was with me every day, al the way up to col ege. Nice thing, believe it or not.”

The street was not unlike the one the Bartens lived on, come to think of it. Very middle-class, but in the best sense of the term: These were people who worked hard, loved the crap out of their kids, and no doubt had neighborhood block parties and miniparades for the kids on the Fourth of July. Hel , even the occasional dog bark was audible nostalgia for him.

Not that he’d ever known shit like this.

“You ready to come inside?” she asked.

“Yeah, sorry.” He headed around the car. “What does your mom do?”

“She’s an accountant. They’ve been together forever—met in col ege, went to grad school at SUNY Caldwel at the same time. He was getting his PhD

in education and she was trying to decide between number crunching and teaching. She picked the numbers because there was more money in it—and then found out she real y loved the corporate stuff. She took early retirement last year and does a lot of volunteering around financial planning—wel , that and the cooking.”

As they hit the slate walkway and approached the glossy black front door, he realized this was the first time he’d met a woman’s parents. Okay, yeah, it wasn’t under the context of a “date” situation, but, man, now he knew why he didn’t get close to anyone. Reil y was going to say his name, and her lovely mom and dad were going to get that frozen expression on their faces as they connected the dots.

Shit, this was a bad idea—

The door burst open before they got to it, thrown wide by an African-American woman who was tal and thin and had an apron over her jeans and turtleneck.

Reil y raced forward and the pair of them hugged so close, red hair mixed in with precisely executed dreads.

Then Reil y eased back. “Mom, this is my new partner—wel , for the month, at least. Detective DelVecchio.”

Veck’s eyes went back and forth between the pair. And then catching himself, he quickly stepped forward and offered his palm. “Ma’am, please cal me

. . . Tom.”

The handshake was brisk but warm, and—

“Where’s my girl?”

The deep voice that boomed out of the house was something that Veck would have associated more with a dril sergeant than a school superintendent.

“Come in, come in,” Mrs. Reil y said. “Your father is so excited you’re eating with us.”

As Veck breached the threshold, he got a view down a hal way to the kitchen, but it didn’t last. A six-foot-four man stepped into the space and took it al up, his shoulders set like a mountain range, his stride long as one of Caldie’s bridges. His skin was dark as night and his eyes were black . . . and missed absolutely nothing.

As Veck thought about The Kitchen Incident from the night before, he nearly pissed himself.

Reil y ran ahead and threw herself at her father, obviously confident she’d be caught and held with ease. And as she put her arms around him, they didn’t go far—the guy had to top out at around two fifty, maybe two seventy-fivediv> As the man hugged her back, that laser stare locked on Veck. Like he knew everything his dinner guest wanted to do to his daughter.

Oh, shit . . .

Tucking Reil y under his arm, her father came forward and put out a palm that was big as a hubcap. “Tom Reil y.”

“You both have the same name,” Reil y’s mom said. “It’s meant to be.”

Veck blinked for a sec.

Reil y laughed. “Didn’t I mention I was adopted?”

Fuck the adoption. He didn’t give a shit what color her parents were, or how it had happened. He was just praying that her father never, ever found out what had happened on his little girl’s dining table the night before.

“Detective DelVecchio,” he said, leaning in for the shake. “Sir.”

“Pleased to meet you. You want a drink?”

“Yeah, that’d be great.” Maybe they could just run an IV of Johnnie Walker into his arm.

“Game’s on.”

“Oh, yeah?”

Just as Reil y’s mom was shutting the front door, Veck glanced outside onto the lawn. That feeling of being watched dogged him stil —to the point where he wondered if you couldn’t catch paranoia like a cold.

Maybe someone with a persecution complex had coughed on him.

“This way,” her father said, like he was used to leading people.

Shaking himself back into focus, Veck fel in line with Reil y and the four of them walked back into a wide-open stretch of modern living, where the kitchen and the family room were al in one big space. The plasma screen was tuned to ESPN, and he knew instantly which chair was her father’s—it had the
New York Times
,
Sports Illustrated
, and the remotes lined up next to it on a table. Armchair beside it?
The Economist
,
The Joy of Cooking
, and the phone.

“Sam Adams okay?” Mr. Reil y asked from the bar.

“Perfect.”

“Glass?”

“I’m a bottle man.”

“Me, too.”

As Reil y and her mom chatted up a storm, Veck sat down with the other Tom in the room and thanked the good Lord that the television was on. It gave her father something to stare at other than him.

Veck accepted the lager that was handed over, brought it to his mouth and took a swal ow—

“So have you and my daughter set a date for the wedding yet?”

The choking came fast and furious as air and beer fought for lane space in his throat.

“Daddy!”

As Reil y started in on the oh-no-you-didn’ts, her father threw back his head and laughed. Clapping Veck on the shoulder, he said, “Sorry, my man, you looked so damn stiff I had to loosen you up a little.”

Veck did his best to grab some oxygen. “Hypoxia—good strategy.”

“Thought so.” The guy twisted around toward his wife and daughter. “He’s going to be fine. Not to worry.”

“Don’t harass the guest, honey,” tchmother said from by the stove. Like the guy was a lion playing with a piece of meat.

“Fine—but if he doesn’t start breathing normal y again, I’l give him CPR.” Mr. Reil y leaned in. “I also know the Heimlich. So you’re safe with solid food, too.”

“I’m so relieved,” Veck said dryly.

Jim stood outside the pool of light thrown by the house, watching Veck and Reil y with what had to be the woman’s parents. The bunch of them ended up at a square table, sitting down to what looked like Italian food. Lot of talking. Lot of laughing.

Veck was a little reserved, but that was probably SOP for the guy—especial y given that it was clear he was interested in his partner: He was al about the clandestine looks, shooting them across that table when people were focused elsewhere.

This was everything that was good in the world, Jim thought. This was the Barten house without the tragedy, a happy family just going about their business in the world. And this blissful, simple existence was exactly what Devina loved to destroy.

This was what everyone had to lose.

Jim cursed and rubbed the back of his neck. Shit, maybe his boys had a point, maybe he was getting too distracted with the Sissy thing. It didn’t feel like that was the case, but that was Eddie and Adrian’s point—if you were al up in your head about something, you lost your judgment.

But come on, he
was
focused on Veck. He was with the guy: Devina so much as sneezed in that detective’s direction, Jim was going to be on her like a plague.

So how was he not working this? How was he compromised ?

He went for his smokes, took out a coffin nail, and lit up. He was utterly cloaked, so it wasn’t as if anyone was going to see the orange glow.

Man, think of the damage he could have done in XOps if he’d had al these bel s and whistles back then—and now he knew why God didn’t give people superpowers. Humans were dangerous enough as it was. . . .

Time ground by, although he knew that from his watch, not any kind of stars or moon. The cloud cover was thick and the grumble of thunder off in the distance made him wonder whether he could be not just invisible, but waterproof—

From out of the corner of his eye, he caught a shadow darting from tree to tree. The thing was low to the ground and moving fast, exactly the way Devina’s minions liked to rol up into a fight.

Fal ing into a defensive stance, he reached for his weapons—and found
none
.

Fucking hel , fucking perfect. Here he was in the ’burbs without backup, with nothing but a house frame and some clear glass windows to keep the target out of the demon’s reach: Because, friggin’ hothead that he was, he’d left without his gun.

At least if Eddie and Adrian were here, the three of them could divide and conquer.

Not compromised, his ass. He’d been so caught up in the drama that he hadn’t taken care of himself, or Veck.

Shit.

The shadow moved to another tree . . . and came out onto the lawn.