vin was totally impressed by his woman. having just been through a hideous and frightening welcome-to-the-unreal-world, and then having gotten hit with an i-love-you bomb, she was holding her ground, staring at eddie with steady, intelligent eyes as she absorbed his answer. "a demon," she repeated.

as eddie and adrian nodded in unison, jim just took a seat on the couch, put his cold beer bottle on his swollen face and leaned back into torn-up cushions. the rippling sigh that came out of his mouth seemed to suggest that new bruise he was sporting looked bad, hurt worse.

god only knew how he'd - oh wait, adrian's knuckles were split.

"what does that mean?" she said.

eddie's voice was level and reasonable. "your common conception of one is largely accurate in her case. she's an evil entity who overtakes the lives and then the souls of people. she's hardwired for destruction and she's after vin. anything or anyone who gets in the way is in immediate danger."

"but why vin?" she looked across the way. "why you?"

vin opened his mouth and nothing came out. "i...i really don't have a clue."

eddie paced around, going from the bookshelves to the ruined mirror. "you said you went to a psychic who gave you a ritual to perform. what did you do to call her to you?"

"but that's the thing," vin said. "i didn't call her at all. i was trying to get rid of the visions. that was it."

"you did something."

"it wasn't to volunteer for this shit, i assure you."

eddie nodded and glanced over his shoulder. "i believe you. the trouble is, i'm pretty damn sure that you were set up. i don't know what you were told exactly, but i'm willing to bet it was not about dumping those trances. the thing is, for devina to go to work, you have to give her a way to get in." eddie refocused on marie-terese. "so in this case, i'm thinking what he was told to do opened him up wide and devina took advantage of it."

"so she's not tied to his visions?"

"nope. she can eclipse them as long as her hold on him is strong - but he's probably getting them again because the tie is weakening a little. as for, why him? think of it like...the metaphysical equivalent of a car accident. vin was in the wrong place at the wrong time, thanks to some very bad advice." eddie met vin's eyes again. "that psychic - how did you find you her? did she have some kind of vendetta against you?"

so the visions were going to come back. great.

"ah, i didn't even know her." vin shrugged. "she was just some woman downtown who i went to randomly."

eddie seemed to shudder - as if vin had just told the guy he'd had a plumber operate on his colon. "yeah, okay...and what did she tell you do?"

vin wandered around, hands on his hips. the night that he had gone upstairs and locked himself in his old room came back to him - and what he remembered doing was not exactly something he felt comfortable sharing in very mixed company.

eddie seemed to get that. "all right, we'll come back to that. where did you do it?"

"in my bedroom. at my family's house - wait, wait, hold the fuck up here...am i responsible for all this?" vin rubbed his chest, the crushing weight over his heart making it difficult to breathe. "if i hadn't gone to her, i wouldn't have...lived this life of mine at all?"

the silence was the answer, wasn't it. "oh...fuck me." and then it dawned on him. devina had said that she had given him everything...did that also mean she'd taken things away as well? "oh, my god...even the deaths? you're saying...i'm the cause of the deaths, too?"

"which deaths?"

"my parents'. they died a week or so later."

eddie looked over at adrian. "that depends."

"on whether i ever wished them dead?"

"did you?"

vin stared at marie-terese and hoped that as he answered, she saw the regret in his eyes as he spoke. shit, his parents had been horrible to each other and worse to him, but that didn't mean he wanted to be the cause of their demise.

"there were two things i wanted when i was younger," he said harshly. "i wanted to be rich and i wanted to be out from under their reign of terror."

"how did they die?" eddie asked quietly, like he knew this was tough stuff.

"after i., did what i did up there in my room, i just went about normal life, you know? school - well, kind of school, because i skipped out a lot. i never thought it worked, and then i didn't really think about it all. it wasn't until it dawned on me that i hadn't collapsed in a full week that i started to wonder if i might have fixed what was wrong with me." vin went over to look out at the view, but instead ended up staring down at a stain on the carpet. it had been made by the broken bourbon bottle, and the dark round mark was the kind of thing no rug cleaner was going to get out. "i remember coming home from working my father's shift, which i used to do when he was too fucking drunk to stand. it was about midnight. i put my hand on the doorknob and i glanced up at the full moon and i was psyched as i counted all the days that had passed. i was like, huh, you don't suppose i'm okay now? and then i walked into the house and found the two of them covered with blood at the bottom of the stairs. they were both gone - and it had probably happened because one of them had pushed the other and gotten pulled along."

"you are not the problem here," eddie interjected.

vin braced his palms on the window and dropped his head. "fuck me."

for no good reason, and probably because it was the only thing that could make him feel worse than he did at the moment, he thought of a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich. a specific one. the only one that had been made for him by his father.

the two of them had come home from a job late and there had been no dinner on the table. which made sense, because the only person who could have made it was passed out on the couch with a cigarette having burned to ash in her hand.

his father had headed for the beer in the fridge, but had broken with tradition by taking out the bread and the jam and the peanut butter on the way there. he'd lit a cigarette, laid out four slices, hit the strawberry and then the jif. after grabbing a miller, he'd tossed one of the sandwiches at vin and walked out of the kitchen.

there had been black fingerprints on the white bread because his father hadn't washed his hands.

vin had thrown the sandwich in the trash, used the sink and the soap, and made himself a clean one.

for some reason, he regretted now that he hadn't eaten the damn thing.

"what did you do?" eddie asked. "what was the ritual?"

"the psychic told me..." vin ricocheted back in time.

after having collapsed in front of the school at a fucking pep rally, he'd had it - and had gone to the newspaper looking for psychics because he figured if they saw into the future like he did, then maybe they'd know how the hell to stop seeing things before they happened.

saturday morning he'd gotten on his bike and ridden all the way down to the riverfront, to a bunch of ratty little storefronts with cheap neon signs that said things like "tarot here!", "astrology readings!", and "100 % accurate! $15!" he'd walked into the first door that had a palm with a circle on it, but there had been a line. so he'd gone to the next one and found it locked. the third one was the charm.

inside, the dark place had smelled like something he couldn't recognize. dark. spicy. later he learned it was no-holds-barred, grown-up sex.

the woman had come out from a beaded curtain and she'd been dressed in black, with black hair and black eyeliner - but instead of a caftan and a wig and wrinkled lids, she'd been in a catsuit and looked like something out of playboy.

he'd wanted her. and she'd known it.

as the echo of meeting her rippled through him, he shook himself back to the present. "i told her what i wanted and she seemed to understand immediately. she gave me a black candle and told me to go home and melt it on the stove. when it was liquid, i was supposed to pulled out the wick and put it aside, then - " he glanced at marie-terese and wished like hell he had another story to tell. "then i was supposed to cut some of my hair and put it in, along with some blood and...ah...something else..."

vin was so not the kind of guy who minced words or stuttered. but admitting to a peanut gallery and a woman he wanted in his life that whacking off had been part of the deal was not the kind of admission he was in a big hurry to make.

"yeah, okay," eddie said, saving his ass. "then what."

"so i was supposed to cool the wax, re-form it with the wick, and go upstairs. get naked. draw a circle with salt. ah..." he frowned. weird, the first part was so clear; precisely what he'd done next was not. "it's fuzzy from then on...i think i cut myself again and dripped the blood into the center of the circle. i lay down, lit the candle. said some words - i can't remember what they were exactly. something like...i don't know, calling things to lift burdens or some shit."

"which was actually bullshit," eddie said with a hard tone. "but then what happened."

"i don't...i can't remember precisely. i think i just fell asleep or something, because i woke up like an hour later."

eddie shook his head grimly. "yeah, that's a possession ritual. the wax she gave you had parts of her in it, you added your half and that was how the door was opened."

"you're saying...that was devina?"

"she comes in a lot of forms. male, female. she can be an adult, a child."

adrian piped in. "we don't think she jumps to animals or inanimate objects. but the bitch has tricks. big-time. is there any chance we can get access to that house? or are we going to have to break in?"

"actually, i own it still."

the two guys took a deep breath. "good," eddie said. "we're going to need to go there to try to get her out of you. we've got a better chance of success if we return to where the ritual was performed."

"we're also going to need to get your ring back," adrian added.

"the diamond?" vin asked. "why?"

"that's part of the binding. jim said he thought it was set in platinum?"

"of course it was."

"well, there you go. noble metal, and a gift from you to her."

"but i didn't give it to her. she found it."

"you bought it for her, though. your thoughts and feelings when you purchased it are embedded in the metal. the intent is transformative."

vin eased off his hands and stood up properly. both of his palms left prints on the slick, cool glass and he watched them fade. "you said she steals souls. does that mean she's going to want to kill me?"

eddie's voice was low. "but we can try to stop that."

vin turned around and looked at marie-terese. she was subdued as she leaned against the archway into the room, and he went to her, taking her into his arms. as they embraced, he was amazed and grateful once again that she accepted him...even after another layer of the onion had just been peeled back.

"what can we do to keep marie-terese safe?" he asked. "is there anything she can do to protect herself? because devina just left here after having seen us together."

as the guys considered his answer, her eyes flashed up and then slid over to eddie. "i'm leaving town tonight - for reasons other than all this. will that help? and are there any...ah, spells, or...?"

the hesitation spoke volumes about both her disbelief and her resignation that all this freaky shit had just put the "real" in her reality.

eddie met her stare head-on. "devina can be everywhere and anywhere, so the answer for keeping you safe is freeing vin - we get her out of him, then by definition you're off her radar, because you are not the one she wants or has claimed. she only has eyes for him - and anything that keeps him from her."

adrian cursed. "bitch only cares about people she's put her name on. it's one of her few virtues."

"maybe the only one," eddie seconded.

"so let's do it," vin cut in. "right now. let's go to the house and take care of this, because devina left in a hurry for god only knows what. i don't want her coming back here and - "

"she's going to be tied up for a while. trust me." from across the way, adrian smiled like a motherfucker. "she hates messes, and i'm really fucking good at making them in her drawers."

vin frowned. "watch your mouth."

"no, not those kind of...you know..." adrian held up both his palms. "i mean dresser drawers - "

"did vin give you back your earring," jim said abruptly to marie-terese. "the hoop that you lost outside the iron mask."

"how did you know that i..." marie-terese frowned. "well, yes, he did."

"so where is it."

her hands went up to her earlobes. "oh...no. i lost that thing again."

and she'd had it on when she'd walked into the duplex, vin remembered. "the bed," he said, on a wave of dread. "upstairs. the bed - devina took something off the bed. goddamn it."

as vin rushed upstairs with marie-terese behind him, jim supposed he should go help, but he felt like someone had super glued both of his ass cheeks to the couch.

adrian put his beer down and headed out after them. "if devina's got a gold earring of that woman's, we're further into the shifter."

jim put his dogfish back up to his face and let his head go lax on the pillow behind him again. closing his eyes was dangerous because he was dizzy, so he kept his lids as low as possible while still being able to see a sliver of the once perfect, now trashed living room.

man, wrecking things was so much easier than cleaning them up, wasn't it.

"she was a virgin, wasn't she," he said softly. "the girl over that tub."

"yes."

"part of a ritual."

there was a pause. "yes."

god, and he'd thought what he'd seen in the military was ugly. what he'd found this afternoon, though, had been downright tragic: a young girl like that should have been out at the mall or something, but there were going to be no more high school notebooks or biology classes or boys at dances for her.

"what's going to happen to her body?" he asked.

"i'm assuming devina will dispose of it. she'll have to fairly soon."

"so every time that bitch has to leave her place, she kills?"

"the seals last for a period of time or until someone other than her breaks them. that's the other reason i didn't want you going through that door."

great. now he had yet another death on his conscience - because sure as shit she was going to have to protect that space again.

jim shifted the bottle to his mouth and took a long draw. after he swallowed, he said, "what's the big deal about that bathroom, though? there was nothing in it."

"nothing you saw, thank fuck."

eddie started pacing around. most of the pictures and the books had been put back into some semblance of order, proof that vin or his maid had been doing some cleanup. but nothing looked right, and jim supposed it was kind of like some woman who'd had her salon hairdo busted apart by a stiff wind: no matter what she did to fix it, it wasn't going to go back to the way it had been.

eddie evened out the spines of a collection of books, his big hands precise and gentle in their movements. "the bathroom is where she keeps her mirror, which is her way in and out of this world. it's also how she clothes herself and changes her appearance. it's the source of everything she is, the seat of her power."

"why didn't we just break the mofo, then," jim demanded, sitting upright. "fuck that, you guys are so tough, why didn't you do that years ago?"

"you break it, it owns you." eddie's voice got tight. "it can capture you if you look into it, but even if you were to walk up to it blindfolded with a hammer, the instant it shattered, the shards would splinter into a thousand portals and suck you in in pieces whether or not you can see the thing."

abruptly, eddie moved to a different section of the bookcase and went back to work lining more things up. "she's going to be livid that we broke the seal and pissed off at adrian for rifling through her shit. more than that, though, she's going to need a change of address. she won't want to leave that mirror in a compromised space."

"but why would she be worried about where it was? if we can't break the damn thing, why does it matter?"

"well, we can bust it up - it's just that the one who does it sacrifices himself. permanently. the afterlife he gets is not part of what you saw when you went over to meet the bosses. we axed devina's predecessor that way - at considerable loss to the team."

suicide mission. fantasic. "so what power do we have?"

"we can trap her in there. it's hard to do, but it is possible."

multiple footsteps came down the stairs and adrian broke the news. "we couldn't find the earring, so we have to assume devina's got it."

eddie shook his head like another brick had been set in the load he was carrying on his back. "damn it."

as vin put a protective arm around marie-terese, adrian went over and picked up his coat. "here's the deal...marie-terese, you need to be at the ritual now, and you can't go home beforehand. not unless you want to run the risk that she'll follow you there and compromise your son."

the woman stiffened. "how...how did you know i have a son? oh, wait - you did the background check on me."

adrian shrugged and lied, "yeah. that's how. you got someone to sit with your little boy?"

marie-terese looked up at vin and then nodded. "yes, i do. and if she can't stay, my service will find me somebody to relieve her."

"good, because we couldn't purify your house or set up a perimeter without giving devina a heads-up where you live, and i do not want to fight her in front of your son."

"i just need to make a call."

"wait a second," vin cut in. "why can't we just take care of the part of it that effects marie-terese here and now?"

"we don't have what we need to do it, and as eddie said, there's a better chance of success if we go back to where you opened the door to devina. first we get her out of you - then if i can't find the earring, we do the same for marie-terese. the good news is that the tie is not all that strong and she will be safest with us. i'm sure you agree - we take no chances."

evidently, vin was on board with that one because he nodded grimly. "absolutely not."

"call your babysitter now, 'kay?" as the woman got out her phone, adrian nodded at jim. "you and eddie are going to oversee the ritual at the old house, but i'll help with the preparations before i leave."

jim frowned, wondering about the hard line of the guy's jaw. "where are you going to be?"

"i'm getting the fucking diamond and that earring back."

eddie cursed under his breath. "i don't like you going in alone."

as he looked at his partner, adrian's eyes became ancient. positively ancient. "we gotta use every weapon we have. and let's face it, what i can do to her is one of the best we've got."

yeah, and what do you want to bet that was not a case of giving her a mani-pedi, jim thought.

as details were arranged for the night's battle, jim knew he had to get back into game-head. this numbed-out, floaty-ass routine had to end, and not just because they were going to engage with the enemy. the thing was, up until now, he'd assumed that "fallen angel" meant perpetual life, but that was clearly not the case - and if he lost eddie and adrian before he learned more of the basics, he was fucked.

about ten minutes later, he and the boys headed back down in the building's elevator and out of the commodore. the truck had been left no more than a block away, and the short walk through the cool air helped.

"first stop, hannaford supermarket," adrian said as he got behind the wheel again.

jim and eddie stuffed themselves into the cab and jim shut the door. "i'll want to go let dog out if we're going to be gone all night."

"and i left my bike at your place anyway." adrian checked the side-view mirror and pulled out of the parking space.

as they went along, jim thought about the two guys he was riding with and wondered about the kind of tricks they had up their sleeves - aside from evidently being able to choose when and by whom they were seen. and being able to get through locks and door chains - which he'd seen not only at devina's warehouse, but vin's duplex -

something dawned on him.

jim looked around eddie's thick chest at adrian. "that night the three of us went out together...thursday night. why did you point devina out to me like you wanted me to fuck her?"

adrian stopped at a red light and glanced over...only to resume looking out the front windshield in silence.

"why, adrian." less question, more growl this time.

the guy's broad palm went around the steering wheel in a slow circle. "i told you. i didn't want to work with you."

jim frowned. "you didn't goddamn know me."

"and i didn't want to work with you and i didn't like you and i'm an asshole." he held one finger up, the conversational signal for hold your horses. "but i did apologize. remember?"

jim leaned back against the seat. "you set me up. you practically gave me to her."

"i didn't follow her out into that parking lot. i didn't fuck her - "

"i wouldn't have seen her but for you!"

"what the hell are you talking about? there's no way in hell you would have missed the likes of - "

"shut up. both of you." eddie uncrossed his arms like he was prepared to break things up with force if he had to. "water under the bridge. let it go, jim."

jim ground his molars. man, this was just like being in with matthias's bunch of sharks. even the people you worked with, who supposedly were on the same side as you, were capable of serving you up like dinner to the enemy.

"tell me something, eddie," he bit out.

"what."

"that binding scale you were talking about. is sex one of the ways devina binds herself to people." when there was only silence, he said, "is it. is it."

"yes," the guy replied finally.

"fuck you, adrian," jim said loud and hard. "fuck you for real."

adrian wrenched the wheel to the right, slammed on the brakes, and threw the truck into park. as the horns of other cars screamed and people cursed, the son of a bitch got out and marched around the hood wearing the expression of a guy who had a crowbar in his hand.

he yanked open jim's door. "get out and let's do this."

jim's hair trigger went off, fueled by that dead innocent girl, the fear on marie-terese's face, the aggression that adrian was throwing off...and the fact that he'd had a demon straddle his hips and ride him until they both came.

it was so on.

"can you two steakheads not do this in public?" eddie barked.

no chance of that. jim's fists were up and ready to fly before the soles of his boots hit the shoulder of the road, and adrian was likewise posed for punches.

"i said i was sorry," adrian spat. "you think i like this job of mine? you think i was ready to come back and break in a fucking greenhorn?"

jim didn't bother talking. he just hauled back and punched the bastard right in the jaw, knuckles snapping out and making contact in the blink of an eye. the impact was so hard, the fallen angel's skull kicked back and sent his great-looking hair into a full farrah fawcett, with locks blowing in the wind.

"that was payback for up in devina's bathroom, motherfucker," jim said. "now i'll work off the other shit."

adrian spat blood. "i knocked you out to save your ass, son."

"fuck. off. gramps."

last word anyone got in for a while.

adrian bull-rushed, catching jim around the middle and pile-driving him back against the side of the truck. as the impact stung him from ear to heel, jim just shrugged off the pain in spite of the body-wide dent he was sure he'd left in the quarter panel. without skipping a beat, he grabbed onto adrian's hair and head-butted the guy's nose, and as the thing went geyser all over both of them, ad's response was just as fast - he returned the insult by kneeing jim in the groin so hard, he clutched his balls and gagged.

fuuuuuuuuuuck. nothing made a man see stars like having his hey-nannies in a head-on collision with solid bone, and as his vision went wavy, his gut thought seriously about air-mailing the beer he'd just had at vin's all over ad's shirt. willpower, and only willpower, had him overcoming cock agony and lunging forward, grabbing ad around the calves, and forcing him off balance onto the grassy ground.

rolling around. lots of rolling around. fists flying. grunts traded. mud everywhere. the only thing separating them from a pair of animals was the fact that they were clothed.

and the only thing that stopped them was eddie stepping in and picking jim up by the back of the collar and the waistband of his jeans and lifting him out of range. after jim was hauled free from the fight and tossed aside like a branch that had fallen off a tree, he landed facedown on brown sod, his entire body throbbing like something out of a commercial for headon.

or in his case, alloverthefuckingbodyon.

breathing in cold air that smelled like fresh dirt and blood, he hurt all over and felt a lot better at the same time. easing onto his back, he let his hands fall to the sides as he looked up at the milky sky. in the clouds above, he thought he saw the face of the girl he had left behind in that bathroom: she seemed to be staring down at him, watching over him.

lifting an arm, he tried to touch her face, but the swirling winds of spring shifted the cloud cover, disappearing her lovely, tragic features.

he was going to find out who she was.

and he was going to do right by her.

just as he had done right by his mother.

those fuckers in that camaro had been the first three men he'd killed. "are we done, children?" eddie snapped. "or do i need to spank your asses until it'll be next winter before you can sit down again."

jim tilted his head and glanced over at adrian. the bastard looked no better than jim felt. "truce?" the guy said through bloody lips.

jim inhaled as deeply as he could - until pain stopped his ribs from expanding any more. well, hell. he might not be able to trust either one of them, but he needed help - and he had a tragic expertise in working with people who were shits.

"yeah," he replied roughly. "truce."