Read Online Fallen Angels 04 - Rapture by J.R. Ward - Free Book Online Page A

moment, the angel said roughly, “She was Eddie. In my dream, she was Eddie.”
    Shit. “That’ll make you scream.”
    “He was there, too. He woke me up, actually. Goddamn it, Jim … seeing him was …”
    As the sentence trailed off, Jim took particular care inspecting his dagger’s blade. “Yeah, I know.”
    “I’m going to kill her.”
    “Only if you get there before I do.”
    Adrian let his arms fall to the sides, so that his fists rested in the choppy pool of water forming around his ass. He looked defeated, but that was just for this moment. That icy rage would be back as soon as that demon came anywhere near them, and frankly, the predictable response was going to be a problem: You didn’t want your backup to go rogue on you, and that kind of mental state was hard to reason with.
    “I think you need to ask Nigel for someone else,” Ad said softly. Like he could read minds.
    “I don’t want anybody else.”
    Except that was a lie. He was still coming to terms with his own abilities and weapons—sure, the learning curve wasn’t as steep as it had been in the first couple rounds, but he was hardly up to speed. And Devina wasn’t the kind of enemy where a marginal performance was even remotely acceptable.
    So he needed some rock solid to back him up.
    In all honesty, Eddie was the missing piece here. And that was precisely why he’d been taken out by the enemy.
    Fucking bitch.
    “Do you know anyone else?” Jim asked.
    “There was another guy—above me and Eddie, actually. Almost on Nigel and Colin’s level. But he ran into some problems—last I heard he was in the In Between. Then again, he was a real wild card. You might as well stick with me in that case.”
    “We’ve got to get Eddie back somehow—”
    “He’s the only one who would know how to do that.” Adrian let out a groan and got to his feet, his massive frame rising like a tree. “Maybe Colin.”
    Jim nodded and refocused on his crystal dagger. The weapon was clear as an ice cube, strong as steel, light as a breath. Eddie had given it to him—
    A squeak and a thump brought his head back to his remaining partner. Ad had picked up the soap, but then dropped it, his hands lifting in front of his face, his mouth working like he was trying to curse.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “Oh … fuck …” Ad flipped them around and looked at the backs. “Shit, no …”
    “What?”
    “They’re black.” The guy shoved out his arms. “Can’t you see? She’s in me—Devina’s in me—and she’s taking over—”
    Jim had a moment of what-the-fuck, but he knew he had to step in and reel this situation back to reality, PDQ. Putting his dagger down on the sink, he shoved the plastic curtain out of the way, and grabbed the angel’s thick wrists—
    That bad-news sensation hit him again, lighting up the nerve endings in his fingers and palms sure as if he’d put them in acid. Focusing on the guy’s skin, he wondered just what the hell had happened in that dream.
    Except the flesh was completely normal. And people who had lost their best friends were allowed to crack up.
    They couldn’t stay that way, though.
    “Adrian, buddy”—he gave the guy a good shake—“hey,
look
at me.”
    When the poor bastard finally did, Jim stared into those eyes like he was reaching in and taking hold of a part of the guy’s brain. “You are
fine
. There is nothing going on here. She is not in you, she is not here, and—”
    “You’re wrong.”
    The bleak words stopped Jim short. But then he shook his head. “You’re an angel, Adrian.”
    “Am I?”
    In a grim voice, Jim countered, “Well, put it like this … you better fucking be.”
    After a tense silence, Jim’s mouth started moving, words coming out of it, sensible, chill-out syllables crossing the distance that separated them. But in the recesses of his mind, he sent up a prayer to whoever might be listening.
    Devina was a parasite, the kind of thing that wheedled into people and infected