Immortal (24 page)

Jim watched the sun rise up through the budding trees outside of Sissy's window. He'd been sitting in the same position for hours, his back braced against a couple of pillows, his legs stretched out in front of him, Sissy's head in his lap. He couldn't feel his ass, and his feet were tingling, but he didn't give a shit.

The fact that the illumination in the sky was a glorious peach and gold didn't uplift him. Actually, the beauty of the dawn just pissed him off: Instead of wasting a miracle on something so everyday and commonplace, so anonymous, why couldn't the Creator, just once, bless the woman who was lying beside him?

What the hell would it cost Him, really? Just rip some storm clouds out over the horizon and shield the magnificence for this one morning—and give Sissy a miracle.

One right after another, all the bad news and bad breaks Sissy had had hit him as if they were his own tragedies—and with each impact to the chest, all he could think of was . . .

Finding Devina and killing her with his bare hands. Just squeezing the life out of her. Making her suffer and then lighting her corpse on fire—

“Will you do it?”

He shook himself out of his murder fantasies. And reinserted
his consciousness back in the real-life nightmare. “Yeah,” he said gruffly. “I will.”

She lifted her head and looked up at him. “And there's no other way, right?”

“Not that we know of. No.”

“Okay. Then we go ahead.”

He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling like he'd been hit by a car and was in the process of being dragged across rough pavement. “All right.”

When he cracked his lids again, she was still staring at him. “I wouldn't trust anyone but you.”

“And I'm not going to let you down.”

“Make love to me.” Not a question. A statement of desperation—and he felt exactly the way she did.

Moving himself down on the mattress, he took her face between his hands and kissed her as he rolled over on top of her. Their clothes seemed to melt away, any barriers that were between them evaporating until they were skin-to-skin. With every caress and each sigh, with all the arching and the soft moans, he was at once completely with her . . . and somewhere else.

All he could think of was that the two of them were going into the jaws of destiny, and there was no telling what was going to be left of either one of them when it was over. Because if he failed her again?

Insanity wasn't going to be the half of it.

Positioning himself at her core, he pressed in slowly and oh, God, the sensation was so good that it shut even his spinning head down. Letting himself go with the rhythm of retreats and penetrations, he rode her with care, giving her all the time in the world to find her pleasure and go flying.

That he orgasmed eventually wasn't the point, although he
supposed it did bring them even closer together. But his release was secondary. This was all about her.

When he finally went limp, his head falling face-first into a pillow, his body so satiated he couldn't muster the energy to prop himself up and ease free of her—in fact, he wanted to stay there forever. That wasn't where they were at, though.

Forcing himself to shift to the side, he wasn't surprised to find her crying.

But she did shock the shit out of him.

Reaching her hand up, she touched his face and whispered, “I want you to promise me something.”

“Name it.”

“Don't blame yourself. If this doesn't work, I don't want you to think for one second you did anything wrong. Sometimes . . . sometimes people get dealt a bad hand and that's just luck. There's nothing you or I could do about anything of this.”

Not so sure of that, he thought. He was absolutely going to make Devina pay.

In ways even that demon couldn't imagine.

“Promise me,” Sissy said.

He nodded his head once and lied. “I promise.”

She stared up at him as the sun rose ever further and the birds began to sing and life across this little part of the world got to its feet and stretched its arms, working its own after-sleep kinks out.

“I love you,” she said.

His heart stopped. Then began to thud. Except . . . “You don't have to say it just because I—”

“No, I have to. Because I want you to know in case . . . you know, I lose my chance to. I love you, and thank you—thank you for everything you've done for me. I said it once and I'll say it again. You are my angel.”

He dropped his head and kissed her—because he wanted to,
but also because he didn't want her to see what was in his expression and she was probably smart enough to recognize what the shit was.

“I love you, too,” he murmured against her mouth.

As, meanwhile, he raged inside.

“Can't we just eat this cake? I mean, come on, Eddie.”

As Ad shoveled another huge piece of the chocolate with fake vanilla icing into his piehole—or Duncan Hines hole, as the case may be—he prayed that his buddy would just frickin' drop the subject.

No luck. “I want to know.”

Ad took a long draw off the rim of his coffee. Eddie had made the java along with the dessert they were having for breakfast, and both were so fucking good—as was sitting across the table from the guy. It was almost like the separation had never occurred.

Almost.

“Ad? I need to know if you can fight in your condition.”

“I don't think I'm compromised too much.” Ad put his mug down and resumed digging in. Was this his second piece? Or third? “Bit of a limp, that's all.”

“And the eye.”

“Whatever.”

“Can I be honest?”

“Please don't.”

Eddie's chair creaked as he leaned back. “I'm really impressed by you.”

Ad's brows popped and he lowered his fork. “I, ah . . .”

“Talk about unselfish.” Eddie nodded. “Respect, man. Big respect. And I gotta tell you, it's not something I would have thought you'd do.”

“Your death changed the rules for me.”

“Yeah, I'm sorry about that.”

Ad frowned. “What are you saying?”

“I should have heard that harpy. I should have been paying more attention.”

“No, it's my fault. I can't tell you how many times I've replayed that whole thing. I let you down.” He put up his palm to stop the arguing. “No. I'm supposed to have your back, and I dropped the ball. Matter of fact, that's the way it's always been between you and me. I've dragged you into more dumb-ass shit and dangerous situations—”

“But it's been fun. It's been so fucking fun.”

Ad recoiled. “Okay . . . that's not what I thought you'd say. Ever.”

Eddie finished his last bite and smiled. “Every straight arrow needs a little chaos in his life. You're mine. We've had some crazy-ass adventures, and yeah, some of it was probably avoidable and very definitely dangerous, but without you? Boring. My immortal life would be very fucking boring.”

Ad ducked his eyes and smiled a little. “So this guilt I've been carrying around?”

“Lose it. I make my own choices, too. I could have ditched your ass centuries ago. But the truth is, I'd rather be crashing into some wall with you than going out for a Sunday stroll with anybody else.”

“You say the sweetest things.”

“Plus, let's face it. With my colossal lack of game, I would never have gotten laid without you.”

Ad stiffened. “Yeah, about that. I'm . . . ah, I'm out of commission from now on.” As Eddie sucked in a little gasp, Ad shrugged. “But I can still get 'em for you. In fact, you say the word and I'll go on the prowl. Hell, I can live vicariously through you.”

“Jesus . . .”

“Come on, it's not like true love was in my picture anyway. Besides, there are only so many ways to pick up a penny, and I've done them all about a hundred and fifty thousand times at this point. Sooner or later, the shit was going to get old, and now I don't ever have to worry about tenting up my pants over some hot piece. So there are advantages.”

There was a long silence.

Ad shifted around in his chair, making the thing creak. “Okaaaaay, it would be really great right now if you wouldn't look at me like that. I still have all my arms and legs attached, you know. I'm fully functional, or sufficiently functional, in all other respects.”

“Of course.” Eddie cleared his throat. “Absolutely.”

Ah, hell, he could so have done without the awkwardness, but the guy was going to find out sooner or later. Might as well be now—

Jim and Sissy appeared in the doorway, the pair of them looking like they were on the way to a funeral. Clearly, the decision had been made.

“We're ready to do this,” Jim said, putting his arm around the woman and moving her close—like maybe he wished his body were the one that was going to get metaphysically sliced open. “I guess we need a trip out for supplies.”

Eddie nodded. “Yeah, we do.”

And that was that, Ad thought as he got to his feet. They'd gotten the band back together . . . and now it was time to rock 'n' roll, so to speak.

He just wished it wasn't performing an exorcism. On Sissy.

Of course it was the same damn Hannaford, Sissy thought, as they pulled into a parking lot that was full of average-cost cars and trucks. And yup, everything was the same as she remembered it: the lines for parked vehicles angled toward the store, the cart corrals intersecting them, the constant in and out from the store's automatic entrances creating a bustle of activity.

Eddie put the Explorer in park and cut the engine. All at once three doors opened and the angels got out; she just put her hand on her handle and stayed in her seat.

Jim glanced over his shoulder, like he'd expected her to be right with them. Then he seemed to pale.

Ad and Eddie glanced at him, and their mouths moved like they were asking him something. As he shook his head, he said a couple of words—and abruptly the other angels looked like they'd been kneed in the balls.

Ah, clearly none of them had done the math about where they'd ended up: the very place where she'd been abducted by the demon.

But whatever, she needed to get over herself. It wasn't as if going into the store again was going to change anything. The evil had already happened.

Forcing her door open, she got out and tugged her sweatshirt into place. “I have the list. Let's go.”

She pushed her way through all their heavy bodies and strode to the entrance. As she went along, she passed a mother with two kids and three hundred dollars' worth of groceries stuffed into a cart . . . an older man with a single bag and a jug of orange juice . . . two middle-aged women who were talking a mile a minute over each other.

For a second, she mourned the fact that back before all the crap had fallen on her head, she had never noticed the people around her: How beautiful it was to see a young family out buying Popsicles and Hamburger Helper. Or how noble a lonely eighty-year-old could be as he braved a trip out to the supermarket by himself. Or what a special thing it was to see an enduring friendship in its natural habitat.

Humanity was beautiful. In all its different shapes and sizes, from its survival modes to its triumphal strutting, in both its poverty and its wealth.

And most of all in its everyday, moment-to-moment activity.

Funny, the discourse of daily life, before she had had hers forfeited, had been like the breath and the heartbeat in the human body—something that happened automatically, and as such was not seen for the miracle it was. It was only after her death that she recognized the fragile power in mortality . . . and held it in appropriate reverence.

As she walked through the automatic doors and into the lobby-ish part of the store, she faltered. The same Muzak was playing, old Michael Bolton piped in through tinny speakers in the ceiling like they wanted to offend the least number of people possible. The lineup of carts was also just the same, and so were the impulse buys lined up on tables—cookies, bags of chips, garden tools.

She closed her eyes.

The garden tools were new, but the Lay's potato-chip stand and the three different kinds of sugar cookies in their plastic containers were exactly what had been there before.

Amazing, she thought as she went further on and emerged into the florist's section. Standing around the buckets of plastic-wrapped roses and the squat cacti in their little clay pots and the free-standing pastel hyacinths, she felt as invisible as she was: People were passing by her without looking over, and that somehow made the divide she felt seem all the more devastating.

Except then she realized . . . maybe that had always been true.

As she stared back at them, she could remember striding by countless numbers of strangers—and she had rendered them all anonymous because she didn't know their names, faces, families. They had been sort of irrelevant, other than the fact that she hadn't wished any of them ill or wanted to be responsible for hurting them.

But that was reductionist. She didn't know what tragedies had come home or would come home to roost for them. Whether they had had their houses broken into the day before, or were facing an illness, or had lost a child, or had been cheated on.

Joy was worn like a new suit of clothes on people. You could see it on every inch of them, from their step to their stare. But sadness and loss were hidden, kept quiet under composure and the shelter of daily activity.

She had no idea what any of these people were facing in their lives. Any more than they knew she was standing among them, neither dead nor alive.

Invisibility was a two-way street, as it turned out.

Which was sad.

And it gave her a new idea of what she wished Heaven was
like. Before, when the destination had been just a hypothetical and she'd been so very, very much younger on so many levels, the eternal resting place in the stars had been nothing but jelly beans and Jujubes, and endless Sunday sleep-ins, and every movie that John Hughes had made on a loop.

Now . . . she thought it was just love. A forever love that wrapped you up and kept you safe and made sure you were always with your family and your friends.

No separation, even between strangers. No sadness. Nobody leaving or getting left behind.

“Sissy?”

She jumped as Jim's hand landed on her shoulder. “Sorry. Distracted.” She held up the list. “I'll go get the salt if you want to handle the lemons?”

“I'm glad you called for another extra apponitment.”

Glancing around her therapist's office, Devina smoothed her short skirt down her thighs and forced a smile, thinking maybe she should have just waited for her regular.

“I fixed the damage I did to my things,” she blurted. “Well, okay, her minions had done most of that. But she had been the one responsible for telling them to do it. “And I'm . . .”

She frowned as she ran out of words. Thoughts. Impulses.

“Devina?”

Feeling as though she had to keep the session going, she scrambled for something, anything, she could say. Eventually, she murmured, “You know, it was funny how I found you.”

“You told me that a friend of yours had recommended me.”

“I lied.” She glanced over to see if she'd upset the woman, but nope. Her therapist was just sitting like a Buddha on her beige-
colored sofa in her beige-colored office, a beige-equivalent expression on her pleasant face. “It was much more . . . it was kind of freaky, actually.”

“Tell me more.”

“Well, I knew that I was going to . . . see, I'd had the same job forever, and I was really happy in the position. I had a lot of autonomy, I was allowed to do whatever I liked. I mean, it wasn't perfect—but I didn't realize what a situation I had until my boss decided to change everything up. Suddenly, where I'd been was the good old days, you know? And then, from out of the blue, I was working with this new guy, in a race for this promotion thing—and one day . . . one day, I guess I just cracked from the stress. I was getting ready for work, sitting in front of the mirror . . .” She lifted her hands to her face, brushing at her cheeks. “I was putting my makeup on—you know, like I do every day. And I . . .”

“Go on, Devina.”

She patted at her jawline, her chin. “I was . . . the problem was the foundation I was using. I couldn't get it right. It wouldn't go over my skin . . . right. It wouldn't cover up the . . .” She blinked fast, memories of the panic coming on strong. “I had to get it right. It needed to be right so I looked right so no one could see . . .”

“Could see what, Devina?”

“What I really am. Who I really am.” She stared down at her hands and smoothed her skirt again. And again. And again. “I couldn't get it right. The foundation . . . just . . .” She cleared her throat, pulling herself out of that moment in the past. “I reapplied it. And then put more on, and did it again. And again. It became paralyzing. I went through an entire bottle and opened another one. Even though I knew I was making it worse, I couldn't . . . it was like I was locked in. I was stuck in some kind of loop.”

The therapist nodded gravely. “I know exactly what you mean.
The ritual took over to such a degree that you were figuratively imprisoned by it.”

“Exactly.” She exhaled. “That's exactly what happened. I finally stopped when I just wore myself out. I was covered with the stuff—it had gotten all over my blouse, my hands, my vanity.”

“Here,” the therapist said, leaning forward with a Kleenex box.

“Oh, I'm not . . .” Except her eyes were watering. “Oh. Thanks.”

As she mopped up, the therapist sat back. “That can be truly terrifying.”

“It was. I wasn't in control of it—and you know, I'd always been, like, a little OCD-ish. I mean, I like everything perfect, and I like my things where they should be. I like my things, period. I feel . . . safer . . . like, when I have the perfect number of lipsticks with me.”

“I remember. It was hard to throw one of them out in our previous sessions.”

“Yes.” Devina drew her hand through her hair, reassuring herself that it was all still in place, that talking about this hadn't magically revealed her true ugliness. “But that morning was the first time I had the sense that it could cripple me—and that terrified me. It's so fucked-up. It's like your best friend turning on you, you know? Like, the thing that makes you feel better all of a sudden . . . owning you.”

“That's very common, Devina. Very, very common.”

“So I took a shower. I had to, I was a mess. And I was staying in this loft at the time. I'm not a big TV person, but it had one of those wide-screen things? I came out of the bathroom and the screen was on. I guess I'd turned it on at some point. I was standing over the remnants of those empty foundation bottles, feeling like I was going crazy, when there you were. On the TV. Veronica
Sibling-Crout. Funny, I haven't seen the ad running since. But it was the perfect time for me.”

“Sometimes things happen for a reason.”

Devina stared at the woman. “You really have helped me. I mean, I still struggle day to day, but you've made me realize I'm not the only person with this . . . problem.”

“You know, a lot of my work is just making sure people know they're not alone. That and teaching them structured ways to deal with behaviors they don't want and think they can't change.”

“You really have . . . saved me. From myself.”

The therapist frowned. “Devina, why does this sound like a good-bye?”

Because it might be. “Things are going to change. Well, for me they're going to change. You might not notice a difference, though.”

Although if Devina won, the woman would absolutely know it. And no doubt, if the therapist was aware of what was at stake in the war, she'd pray that Jim won this last round.

“In what way are things going to change for you?”

“The promotion. It's time for the position to be decided. Either I or the other guy will get the vice presidency.” Again, the parallel she'd constructed wasn't an exact match, but it was the closest she could get without blowing the woman's mind. “And if I don't get it, I won't be able to come here anymore.”

“Why? Are you going to be transferred?”

Almost certainly, and not in a good way. “Yes.”

The therapist frowned. “You seem . . . resigned to some kind of fate.”

“I guess I am. This can't go on forever.”

“Devina, let me ask you something. Do you believe in God?”

Hell, she'd met the guy. “Yes. I do.”

“Do you believe He loves all His children?”

“Aren't we getting a little religious?” Not that she minded it, necessarily, it was just a shift in—

“Do you, Devina?”

She thought over her long relationship with the Creator . . . and all the things she'd put Him through. “Yes, I know He does. Even the broken parts of His world . . . He loves even them.”

“So be not afraid of any fate that awaits you.”

She laughed harshly. “I wish.”

“If you believe in the traditional notion of God, then He is all-powerful—so no part of Creation did He not contemplate, and no turn in any destiny is not one He engineers.”

“On that theory, He's probably after me. Or should be. I've done a lot of very . . .” Evil. “. . . bad shit.”

“But He created you, too.”

Devina shifted in her puffy chair, feeling like things were getting a little too real all of a sudden. It was as if . . . “Should we go back to talking about lipsticks?”

“If that makes you feel better, sure.”

Devina narrowed her eyes on the woman. Same as she'd always looked, same voice, same Mother Earth body and sixties-holdover clothes.

It seemed impossible that someone like her had made such an impact.

Devina crossed and recrossed her legs. “I don't know. I guess I just want to thank you for everything you've done with me. It's . . . been really helpful.”