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  "We gotta get the fuck out of here," he muttered.

  But there was no running to be had. The fluffy, dusty ground didn't offer good traction, and keeping Nigel from becoming a flower bed in the shit was requiring all the strength he had.

  A crack of thunder was so loud it made him wince, and he did the best he could to protect the archangel. Fucking A, he'd asked for a break in the monotony and what did he get? A tornadic supercell. Great improvement. Thanks, Mother Nature--

  There was another momentous clap overhead and then the utterly inexplicable happened.

  From out of the center of the storm, a large object was birthed from the sky, falling free from up above and landing with a great mushroom cloud of that ash.

  "What the . . ." Jim rubbed his eyes in case he'd lost his mind or his vision.

  Nope. It was, in fact, the Victorian couch from the parlor. And right after it? The huge rug. Books. The velvet sofa and the coffee table and the candlestick Sissy had brained Colin with . . .

  "It's our fucking ride home!" he yelled. "Jesus Christ, they did it!"

  He offered a quick prayer of thanks to the Creator--after all, it was kind of hard not to believe in the guy, considering Jim had met Him and this was, or at least had the potential to be, a frickin' miracle.

  Except how were they going to--

  A sense of lift grabbed him by the hair and shoulders, and he could feel a sudden buoyancy in his body, that super-heavy gravitational hold easing up its drag coefficient on his bones. And abruptly, Nigel's weight wasn't so heavy either.

  As the levitation began to take serious hold, Jim looked into the center of the hurricane and wondered how this was going to work. But then the suck zone kicked up big-time, the inward flow becoming undeniable. Dust came with him as he was lifted from the insufferable ground, and he held Nigel in a death grip--literally.

  He wasn't going to lose the guy, especially as they started to spin.

  Jim kept his eye on where they were headed until the particles in the air stung so badly he couldn't keep his lids open. Then it was a case of faster and faster with the turning until his hair peeled back from his face and the silk robing Nigel had on slapped at them both.

  Jim began to lose his grip. "Hold me!"

  The archangel dropped his hands instead. Like he'd passed out.

  Closer to the vortex they rose, faster and faster they spun, until Jim's empty stomach revolted and he thought seriously of hurling.

  And then he didn't think of anything at all, because, like Nigel, he lost consciousness.

  Chapter

  Thirteen

  In the suck zone of the parlor, Sissy went horror-movie, clawing at the floorboards as she was pulled on her belly feet-first toward the energy swirl. Bracing herself for being ripped apart, she knew that whatever had happened to all those pieces of furniture, wherever they had gone, was going to--

  Except then everything went haywire. Okay, more haywire.

  The explosion was so great, her body went into a tumble, arms and legs flying through air or space or wherever the hell she was. Pain lit up over every inch of her skin, like she was being flayed alive, and when she went to scream, something entered her mouth and stung like bees.

  Except she wasn't getting sucked in.

  She was being thrown free. Violently.

  The impact of her hitting the wall was so great she went loose and cascaded to the floor. Her shoulder hurt so badly it had to be dislocated, and God only knew how much other damage had been done. For a moment, all she could do was lie there, but the sudden quiet in the room seemed as dangerous as all the noise had been.

  With a groan, she rolled over onto her back and coughed. Her nose and throat were irritated, and as she blinked her vision clear, her eyes felt like they had sandpaper for lids. Gradually, she became aware that there was the strangest sound in the parlor, and it took her a moment to figure out what it reminded her of: sleet. It was just like a subtle chorus of sleet falling inside the house, a hundred million tiny particles hitting the floor.

  Sissy pushed herself over onto her side and forced her vision to get with the program. Unbelievable, she thought. The maelstrom Colin and Devina had created was gone as if it had never been, and--bonus!--there was no new national landmark or body of water in its place. The parlor's windows had all been blown out, however . . . and there was, right in the center of the room, a boulder-like mass that was covered with some kind of volcanic ash.

  As if maybe all of the furniture and objects that had been sucked into the vortex had been chewed like gum and spit out.

  Considering God only knew what it really was, she checked for the others in case there was more fighting to do: Colin was slumped where he had been originally thrown against the wall. Devina was crumpled in the corner on the floor, her anti-gravity thing not having outlasted the explosion. And Adrian was actually upside down on his head, his legs propped up against a stretch of molding like a drunk trying to do a yoga pose.

  Nobody was moving--

  No, wait . . . that mass in the center of the room was. And as it turned around itself she realized . . . it wasn't solid at all--and it wasn't made of rock. It was an orb of light that was covered in ash. And as it writhed, the gray dust fell from it, revealing something close to a three-dimensional shadow.

  Two shadows. Twisted around each other.

  Like two people who had had to hold on to each other.

  All at once, Sissy's brain came back online. Her body was slower to get with it, but she had enough coordination to crawl across the now-bare and dusty floor.

  "Jim . . ." The tears that sprang to her eyes helped get rid of some of the grit. "Jim!"

  At the sound of his name, half of the light separated, pulling free of the undifferentiated mass--and then with a sizzle of electricity, it beelined for Jim's remains . . . and found home.

  The animation was immediate. Jim's body jumped, arms and legs flopping, that chest expanding as a great breath was taken--

  Jim tried to sit up so fast it was like he had jumper cables hooked to his feet--but the dagger Colin had stabbed through his shoulder kept him down.

  "Fuck!" he barked, grabbing that side of his pecs with his free hand like he couldn't figure out why things hurt or were stuck. "Fuck!"

  His curse was so loud, it woke up the other people in the room, but he didn't look around. Those eyes of his went to hers and stayed there.

  "Oh . . . God . . ." he whispered. "You're back."

  "No," she croaked as her strength gave out from relief. "You are."

  Gritting his teeth, he palmed the hilt of the weapon that impaled him and had kept his body from disappearing. Then he yanked the blade free not only of the floor, but his own flesh.

  In spite of all he'd been through, and a now bleeding wound, he scrambled to her and grabbed her so hard, she had to groan--but she didn't care. He could crush her as much as he wanted.

  She crushed him back.

  It seemed impossible that she was holding him. That he had returned.

  Jim pulled back and cupped her face between his palms. "Sissy . . ."

  Her heart was hammering so much, there was no opportunity for it to beat faster--even though she had the sense that he was going to kiss her. Hell, considering everything that had just happened, the fact that his stare shifted down to her lips and his strong arms maneuvered her into position seemed . . . like a pretty damned good idea.

  Because she wanted it, too. She needed to feel him up close and all over--like that was the only way her mind could grapple with the fact that he was actually here.

  "Sissy." His voice was almost too deep to register. "I've gotta tell you something--"

  "Get the fuck away from him," the demon bit out.

  In spite of the fact that the parlor was powdered with gray dust, Purgatory's existence and any experience over there disappeared completely as Jim stared into Sissy's eyes.

  The vow he had made, the realizations that had come to him, stuck around, howev
er.

  Cupping her face, he got choked up not because he didn't know what to say, but because there was too much to get out--and he said her name a couple of times while he tried to direct traffic in his brain.

  In the end, he decided to lead with the big one . . . even though the only woman he'd said those three words to had been his mother--so he was beyond rusty.

  Except he didn't get that far. Just as he started speaking, the one person he never wanted to see or hear from again piped up.

  "Get the fuck away from him."

  As he looked across the parlor, the extent of the damage they'd done registered dimly--the place was trashed, great holes in the lineups of the bookshelves, windows broken, drapes shredded. Plus ninety percent of the furniture was somewhere else, natch. But none of that mattered as he watched Devina get to her feet.

  The fact that the demon was in the house at all was a surprise, given the additional protection spell he'd put up--then again, maybe the thing hadn't survived his second "death." Oh, wait, make that third. And yet, even though her presence wasn't a good thing, it was amusing to see her look so disheveled, her brunette hair a ratty mess, her leather pantsuit smudged with ash, streaks of oozing black on her face and shoulders from where she'd been cut.

  What was not a shocker or funny at all was how pissed off she was. Those shark-like eyes of hers were glowing in an unholy way, and her talon hands were curled into claws. She wasn't looking at him, though.

  She was focused on Sissy.

  And what do you know, that was a match to his ignition, lighting him up from the inside. Shuffling his woman behind him, he got to his feet and faced off with his enemy.

  "What the fuck are you doing here, demon."

  Her eyes swung over to his. "I'm the reason you're out, asshole." She pounded on her chest. "So show some respect."

  "Actually, it was a group effort, bitch."

  At the sound of Ad's hoarse voice, Jim became aware that there were two other people in the room: the other angel, who was trying to unpretzel himself over by the windows, and Colin, who was still pretty out of it.

  "Jesus," Jim breathed. "You didn't use her to--"

  "Get away from him!" Devina lurched forward. "Get away from my man."

  Yeah, screw that, Jim thought. In spite of the fact that his body felt like it had been through a meat grinder, he was more than ready to hit her. Just haul off and clock Devina so hard she--

  A rhythmic sound broke into the room, strident and loud enough to get even the demon's attention. And it was as Jim twisted around to look behind himself that he realized who and what it was . . . and how he'd managed to find Nigel in that dusty, torturous place.

  Dog, who was not actually a dog, was parked between the doorjambs of the parlor, his scruffy little body braced, his muzzle working as he barked at the demon.

  It was that noise he'd heard in Purgatory, Jim thought. That beacon that he'd followed in a place with no compass points and no destinations.

  Holy shit, the Creator Himself had been the one to lead him to the archangel.

  Snapping back to attention, Jim found Devina frozen in place, clearly caught between a jealous urge to rip Sissy limb from limb and a serious sense of self-preservation.

  "But it's not fair," the demon bitched. "It's not fucking fair."

  Dog kept up with the barking, like he was talking at her. And then Devina looked at Jim, her expression changing into something that seemed a lot like hurt.

  With four deliberate steps across the bare, dusty floor, she came up to him, raised her hand over her shoulder, and slapped him so hard both of his ears rang.

  "You are too cruel," she said numbly. "And you do not deserve me."

  One more nasty glare at Sissy and the demon was gone, poofing it out of the room.

  "Well, that could have been worse," Ad muttered. "Although, man, we've so lost our security deposit on this place."

  Chapter

  Fourteen

  Nigel regained consciousness in the opposite way from the manner in which he'd lost it: slowly and in stages. First came a hazy awareness of being, then a rudimentary thought that he was drawing breath. Next was discomfort . . . that expeditiously ramped up to full-on pain.

  Amongst the many aspects of life that were straddled by an entity such as himself, the duality of his nature, both corporeal and ethereal, meant that he was not entirely free of contending with the physical travails of possessing flesh. And such was the case now.

  Especially as the shell he had left behind in Heaven reestablished itself over his core, sprouting from the essence of his energetic being.

  Naturally, this made the suffering even more acute, and he parted his lips to release a moan.

  "His arms are broken," someone said from above him.

  "His legs, too."

  And then that voice, that special, sacred voice that had both kept him sane and made him crazy, spoke up: "How unfortunate. I shall have to wait until they heal first so that I may break them anew."

  Nigel opened his eyes and sought the male who had uttered the words. And there he was, Colin, the archangel, standing off to the side, his arms crossed as if in disapproval, his brows down, as was usual. That stare of his, however, was the very antithesis of the male's typical dispassion: It glittered with a sheen of tears.

  It was a death anew to see the hurt he had caused. The betrayal and the injury.

  Nigel lifted his hand, as he could not speak--the gesture the only way he could beg. Colin tracked the movement . . . and shook his head.

  The rejection was then completed as he addressed Jim and Adrian, speaking some combination of words that Nigel was incapable of understanding. Indeed, he would have withstood the pain he was in ten thousand times over to have a chance of his apology being accepted. But he knew his lover too well to be surprised.

  Colin did not spare him another look as he disappeared, leaving nothing in his wake but a pair of footprints in the fallen ash upon the floor.

  Nigel closed his eyes and found himself wishing for a permanent death.

  "Nigel," Jim said. "Nigel, you still there?"

  No, he was not. "Aye, savior," he rasped.

  "Listen, we gotta . . . we gotta do something about the shape you're in. We can't leave you like this."

  "Aye."

  There was a long pause, like the two angels and the transient soul Sissy Barten were waiting for some instruction. He had none to give them. His direction had just left him for a very rational reason as Colin was not the type to make mistakes more than once.

  Nor give his heart in that fashion.

  "Nigel, can you fix yourself?" Jim asked. "Can you take care of this?"

  When Nigel shook his head, Sissy spoke up. "I don't suppose we could take him to the ER."

  "Yeah, not sure how that would work." Jim cursed. "But I was trained to be a field medic. I've set a bone or two--although nothing like this."

  Nigel cleared his throat and shut his eyes. "I am in your care, savior."

  "Okay. All right. We need something to put between his teeth--oh, great, thanks, Ad." A rustling sound. "Nigel? Open up and bite down on this, boss. It's part of a drape."

  Doing as he was instructed, he didn't brace himself for new agony. He was in a sufficiency of that already. It was not going to become worse.

  "I'm going to start on your right leg, okay?" Pause. "Boss? You with me?"

  "But of course, savior," he mumbled around the gag.

  Abruptly, Jim's voice became very distinct, as if he'd moved up to Nigel's ear. "You sure there isn't another way to do this? I'm pretty sure you got magic tricks I don't know about."

  Oh, there was. But he did not have the strength for it, and more to the point, he was in the mood for a lancing.

  "Nigel? Hello? Nothing to say, huh. Okay, get ready."

  There were some orders given by the savior to the two others, and Nigel felt a pressure on his hips, as if someone had straddled him and was sitting down. Then his leg was laid out flat,
the pieces of bone grinding one upon the other at the repositioning.

  The gag was rather useful, as it turned out, his molars sinking into it as if it were flesh.

  "On three," Jim said. "One, two . . ."

  When "three" arrived, Nigel's lids popped wide-open and he screamed around the fabric in his mouth, the pain so great it appeared as if he had been wrong about being unable to feel worse.

  Tears speared into his eyes and fell down the sides of his face, getting into his ears and his hair, and if he could have, he would have rolled over to vomit. Instead, he began to sob, his chest jumping with every jagged inhale, his dry throat racked with his heaving.

  Through the great release of sorrow, Jim's voice cut in as if he had once again come up to Nigel's ear. "Do you want me to stop?"

  Nigel shook his head and stared at the ceiling through his wailing. He needed to pay for the hurt he had caused and for his lack of courage and faith and for the fact that he had hurt the one entity in the universe who had always stood by him.

  "You sure," Jim said grimly.

  All Nigel did was nod again.

  Sissy watched from three feet away as Adrian sat on Nigel to keep him as steady as possible and Jim reset the leg bones. On the left side, the archangel had two breaks, one of the calf and one of the thigh, and Adrian had to lean down and stabilize the knee after the upper problem was fixed. The arms were just as bad.

  She'd had to sit out a couple of field hockey games her senior year thanks to a sprained ankle--and that had been no walk in the park. She couldn't fathom what this must be like. She wasn't going to turn away, however. If there was a chance for her to help, she was going to be there.

  That face, though. As long as she lived--or, jeez, "lived," she supposed--she was never going to forget the way the archangel's lips pulled off his teeth and his jaw gritted and his eyes disappeared in folds of agony as he grimaced. And the tears.

  They made her want to weep. Not just for him, but for each of them.

  When it was all over, Jim was panting from the effort. Coughing, too--which, given the amount of sediment that had come across with him from Purgatory, suggested the place was like a desert. As Adrian unhinged himself from the archangel's torso, Jim sat back and wiped his face on his shirt.

  "Without X-rays," he said, "I don't know whether I did more harm than good."