Good Side of Sin (9 page)

“Isaiah?”

“I’m here, Josselyn, and looking through your eyes. I see he’s not like the others. Let me double check to make sure this soul is not here. Give me a few minutes.”

I exhaled as I moved my focus to the others, and then pulled my shirt over my nose as a mask, so the odor wouldn’t be as strong when I inhaled. Breathing isn’t necessary for my kind, but it’s a habit I have never been able to break. It’s just natural, so I do it without even thinking most of the time.

They were all males and all between the ages of thirty and forty-five. That didn’t tell me anything.

I placed a steady hand on the guy beside the guy with the crushed skull, but could sense no soul within the host. I did the same for the other three and got the same results: no souls.

“Did you check their pockets for identity?”

“Why the hell would we care who they are… were? It’s not like we are going to knock on the door of their closest relatives and tell them that we killed their loved ones.”

I had figured as much, but I was curious to know who they were so I could work out why Thoros singled them out to kill. I started to turn one of the guys over to retrieve his wallet, but Isaiah buzzed back with an update.

“Josselyn? The big guy…”

“Yeah?”

“He is here.”

I raised an eyebrow in interest. “Really?”

“What?” both Troy and Baddon said in unison.

“Isaiah says the big guy is in Heaven.”

“So, why aren’t the others?” Troy asked.

I shrugged. “I don’t know. The back of his skull is crushed, so that could mean that Thoros didn’t actually intend to kill him; the door crashing down on him could have done it and then his soul may have followed the natural process of going to Heaven. The others…” I shook my head. “They don’t have a soul and they aren’t in Heaven.”

“Perhaps they are in Hell?” Baddon suggested, and I shook my head.

“We would have a record of that. We know when the soul is damned, but these have just disappeared, like…” I swallowed hard, and then looked up to Troy. “They have gone missing just like Malcolm.”

“No, Josselyn. This is different—”

“How is it different?” I shouted and stomped my foot as I looked up to the ceiling, like Isaiah was up there amongst the dried plaster and cooling vents. “Is there not even a possibility the missing souls could be in Limbo?”

The archangel sighed in my head.
“No, and I think you need to investigate the problem with Thoros a little more before you go off to a completely different—”

“I have to go!” Baddon said in a panicked voice. “Thoros has murdered another. He is summoning me now.”

I took off running up the basement steps ahead of him. “Meet me upstairs! I have to get the rest of the crew together. We are going with you, Baddon!”

Swaying on his feet, Thoros looked back to the wreckage in distaste. He remembered a bit more about this one, for some reason, although he still didn’t have a clue as to why all this stuff was happening only to him.

He heard a series of pops then looked to his right and let out a groan. “There are only two bodies. There was absolutely no reason to bring half a dozen angels to help clean up my mess!”

“Shut up and sit down before you hurt yourself. You look like Hell warmed over,” Baddon said, and then walked past him to the upside-down car.

Thoros wanted to argue, but fatigue had other plans and the ground rushed up to meet his butt with a slap and a hi-how-are-ya’.

“What happened? You remember anything about this one?”

Thoros, dizzy and feeling like he was about to throw up, looked up to the two Baddons and dozen angels who were trying to pull the bodies from the vehicles.
Wait
, he thought,
there was only one car a moment ago.

He blinked a few times and half of them disappeared, including one of the cars. “Um… yeah,” Thoros said, grabbing his throbbing head between his palms. “I remember thinking that I needed to find someone: a guy, the guy that was on the bike yesterday, the one I followed to the casino. I remember wanting to track him, and then, as I was fleeting, I stopped in the middle of the road in front of that car. The driver swerved to miss me and hit a dip off the shoulder. That’s the result. I blacked out after that.”

“We have two in the vehicle, Josselyn. They’re both dead.”

“Thank you, Paul. Carry them back to the house and put them in the basement with the others, please. We need to get out of here before the human police show up.”

“We’ve got another one over here,” Marcus shouted from about fifty feet northwest of the wreckage. “Eww… Uh… this one is still moaning a bit, boss.”

Thoros’ head popped up at the angel’s statement, but he couldn’t force his muscles to obey his mind and stand up so he could help do… something. He felt the softest touch on his arm and turned his head to lock eyes with a pair of irises the color of sweetened mocha. After shaking his head, he let out a shuddering breath. “I’m so sorry.”

Josselyn looked away from him to the angel that found the guy with a heartbeat. “Be as careful as you can with him and get him back to the house, Marcus. I’ll be there in a little while to heal him.”

“I can heal him,” the angel said. “You have enough to deal with right now.” He glanced at Thoros before looking back to her.

“Thank you,” she said, and then looked back to Thoros.

Hadn’t she heard him? He hadn’t apologized for the three bodies and the crumpled car, or even the other five corpses decaying in the basement back at the mansion. What he meant was that he was sorry for before, sorry for the pain he had caused her and sorry for not being the man she deserved to have in her life. That’s what he was sorry for. Didn’t his apology matter to her?

His heart began a quick gallop in his chest as he stared at her, waiting for a response, any response, but he got nothing. Her face was a mask and completely void of any emotion.

Josselyn hooked her arm under his and lifted him effortlessly to his feet, and then another angel was there to help steady him. “Take him home, Joshua,” she told the guy on his right arm, and then let the one she had go. “I’m putting you on house arrest until we get all this figured out, Thoros.”

Thoros opened his mouth to argue, mainly because she wasn’t the one taking him home, but she had already turned and walked away to talk to a very large angel. He recognized the guy as the angel that had been looking for Josselyn at the home of Kendra Chamberlain when he and Abigail had gone to protect Rhyan’s charge.

A surge of jealousy ran through him, but he knew he was in no shape to defend himself against an angel of that size, much less actually win the fight. And wouldn’t he just look stupid trying to do so?

Thoros huffed, and then turned to glare at the angel that was still holding him upright. “What are you waiting for? Take me home and lock me up. Didn’t you hear the lady? I’m grounded!”

Linking his fingers together atop his great desk in his business chamber, Isaiah thought about the recent events with an open mind.

The soul that had managed to escape Thoros and come to Heaven hadn’t remembered anything after talking through the hotel door with him. That gave them absolutely no leads.

Only one of the three in Thoros’ last incident had shown up to speak with Saint Peter. It turned out the guy’s interest in child pornography earned him a vacant spot in the Syde of Lust, instead of this side of the gates of Heaven. He hadn’t told Josselyn the reason why the soul had been damned; he hadn’t felt it was any of her concern.

Isaiah knew that one of the victims from the vehicle accident was still breathing, but he could only assume that the other soul had gone on to be with the four missing ones. So, all she needed to know was that she had seven dead—five of them with missing souls—and one alive… for now.

It boggled his mind to think of where they might have gone. He prayed the young angel followed her heart as well as her stubborn mind. Josselyn was just as much of a pain as Isaiah expected her to be, but he knew she was the one for the mission. Her strong-minded attitude was what was going to solve this case and get them all home safely. Her link with the forgiven demon would only help her do that faster—that was his theory, anyway. Isaiah had to trust that she would make the wisest decisions. He was out of options, either way.

Lameria… Yes, Lameria never ceased to amaze him. He couldn’t deny the feelings that little vixen still stirred in him, but he couldn’t allow himself to accept that she had changed, because she hadn’t. He wasn’t sure she ever would, and knowing that hurt him like nothing else could.

He missed her something fierce.

God may have taken away their ability to feel physical pain of any kind, but the sting of betrayal was there as a constant reminder that they may be
immortal,
but never would they be
invincible.

He sighed as he got to his feet, and then plodded to the east window. The dark reddish-black blemish, evil and misguiding as it was, was still there on Heaven’s horizon. They had inspected it thoroughly, but discovered that it was sealed up tight, and if, for some reason, that changed, there were several members of Heaven’s Line of Defense just waiting to engage whatever dared to pass through.

Isaiah folded his hands together loosely behind his back and turned toward the door. The soft taps he’d known were coming finally sounded throughout the room. “Enter,” he said, and waited for the child to peek her head around the edge of the door. He gave her a glowing smile, despite his mood, and then held out his arms for a hug as she rushed to him. “How fare thee, my sweet Hannah?”

The little girl smiled up at him, her freckles the embodiment of innocence and her blue eyes trusted that nothing could ever go wrong in this magical world. Her time on Earth had been brief, almost six years to the day, just long enough for Heaven to miss her and everyone who’d met her to become sorely attached to her sparkling personality. Heaven was her fairy tale and she—the beautiful princess. He wanted to keep it that way for her, so he struggled to hide the fear behind his eyes for her sake.

“Gabriella sent me to fetch you,” Hannah said on a trail of giggles that were music to Isaiah’s ears.

His eyes popped wide with false surprise. “Fetch me? As if I was a dog? Well, where is my bone, young angel?” he said, and began to tickle her ribs to keep up the glorious giggles.

“I gave… it—” Her words cut off sharp and laughter filled the large room “to—to… to Ruffus!” The giggles resumed at a glass-shattering level.

He loved it.

“You gave my bone to that mutt?” Isaiah held her out at arm’s length, his brow scrunching as he tried to give her a hurt expression. “He will eat it all and I will be left with
niente
.”

She laughed, and then placed her tiny palm on his cheek. “Ruffus isn’t a mutt. He’s a full-blooded Boxer-Poodle-Shar Pei.”

Isaiah blinked twice. “Yeah. That makes him a mutt, princess. C’mon, let’s go see what the Wicked Witch of the West wants with me,” he said as he took her little hand in his, letting her lead him to the door as she skipped.

I sat in a chair and watched the demon as he slept. Thoros appeared to be having a nightmare—with the sudden jerks and moans that came from his frail-looking body—and I could see why, with everything that had happened to him in the last week. Taking a deeper look at his features, I assessed his sweat-covered brow, the delicate skin around the eyes, which was now a dark purplish color, his eyes, set farther back in their sockets than normal, and his shallow breathing. The weight he had lost in the last three months worried me a lot; I could tell the man was sick. Although I already knew that, I hadn’t realized, until now, just how sick he was.

I let my thoughts wander to Troy and felt him smile at the mind nudge. He was down in the basement with Troop C, the soulless bodies and the… the rest of the
special cases.

Marcus had brought the only living human that had been involved in the vehicle accident back with him, and was now doing all he could to make sure the guy pulled through. Troy and Baddon had brought the other two in and put them with the others. I would have a look at them once I had a chance to see if Thoros remembered anything else and to make sure he understood that he could not go
anywhere
without someone tagging along with him.

After Troy let me know all was A-okay down in the basement, and that Thoros’ only living victim appeared to be getting stronger, I let my eyes roam around the room freely and relaxed a bit in the comfortable chair.

I heard a soft guttural purr from the other side of Thoros’ bed and, instinctively, my body went into defensive mode. My muscles tensed, ready for anything that threatened to jump out at me. I rose from my seat and tip-toed to the end of the bed, and then stretched so I could peek my head around the edge of the mattress.

Thoros turned to lie on his back beneath the sheet and I let out a squeal as I jumped back in surprise. Luckily, my outburst didn’t wake the demon in the bed or the little beastly creature curled up on an enormous pillow in the far corner of the room.

I vaguely remembered Rhyan demanding the release of several demons, a couple of minions and one of the flying creatures from Lucifer when he’d rescued me. I’d been too stunned to remember much else about that time. I had done everything possible to block that memory from my mind; my heart didn’t ache if I didn’t constantly dwell on the events that had occurred between me and… I looked back to the now relaxed face, the sharp jaw line, the top half of that stone-like chest as it rose and fell, and knew I couldn’t deny the attraction I still felt for him.

I couldn’t deny it, but I could ignore it, and I damn sure didn’t have to let him or anyone else know how much I wanted him still.

What we had—or what
I
thought we had—was over, a fairytale that didn’t, and never would, have a happy ending.

“A kiss for your thoughts?”

My breath caught in my throat as that intoxicating voice of his tore me from my thoughts. “I’m sorry?” I said as I met the green eyes that slowly made their way back up my body. I swallowed, the all too familiar pressure in my chest becoming all the more evident the longer I stood there, letting him undress me with his eyes.