After the Childes set off in their cars, with Eddie and Adrian surreptitiously on their heels, Jim and Isaac stayed behind in the house of a thousand secret passages--all of which Jim had been shown, thanks to Captain Childe.

In the wake of the departures, the house was dark, inside and out, and he and Isaac stood at the ready.

It was the old times back again, Jim thought.

Especially as he put his phone up to his ear and waited for Matthias to answer the call. Although . . . if it really was back in the day, the bastard would fucking pick up.

At this point, he was desperate for a way to reach the guy before he arrived with all guns blazing--

His former boss's voice shot into his ear. "Isaac."

"No." Jim trod carefully, because God knew there were loose ends hanging all over the place. "Not Isaac."

There was a moment of pause which was filled by a subtle whir in the background. Car? Plane? Hard to be sure, but probably a car.

"Jim? Is that you." The voice was robotic, deader than dead. Obviously, even a hi-how're-ya from the grave wasn't enough to shake the guy, but it seemed in this instance not to be a case of the great mastermind being unflappable. More like the man was numbed out.

Jim carefully chose his words. "I'm more interested in how you are. That and I'd like to talk about the picture you received."

"Do you. Well, I got other things on my mind--like how you are on my phone. You're dead."

"Not really."

"Funny, I had a dream about you. I tried to shoot you and you didn't die."

Shit, straddling the two worlds was complicated. "Yeah, I know."

"Do you."

"I'm calling about your number two. Isaac didn't kill him."

"Oh. Really."

"I did." Liar, liar, pants on fire. Good thing he'd never had a problem with that kind of shit.

"And again, I say to you, I thought you were dead."

"Not that dead."

"Clearly." Long pause. "So if you are alive and well, why'd you go and do that to my number two, Jim?"

"I told you I wouldn't let anyone get near my boy Isaac. In that dream. I know you heard me."

"You saying I should start calling you Lazarus instead of Zacharias?"

"You can call me anything you want."

"Well, whatever the fuck your name is, you just put a bullet in your `boy's' head. Congratulations. Because Isaac's the one I'm going to settle the debt with--and you know me. I'll do it my own special way."

Shit. Grier Childe. How much you want to bet, Jim thought. "That's not logical."

"It's highly logical. Either Isaac did it and you're covering for him and hoping for leniency. Or you did do it, in which case I actually do have a score to settle with you-- and the way I'm going to take care of that you-owe-me is leaving you with a murder on your conscience. Since you hate collateral damage, it's going to be a real ass slap."

"Rothe helped save you. In that dustbowl you nearly killed yourself in."

Now the guy all but growled: "Don't give me another reason to come after him."

Bingo, Jim thought, tightening his grip on the phone. This was his way in, and more important than a who-shot-the-demon showdown.

"Bitter, Matthias. You sound very bitter. You know, you've changed."

"No, I haven't--"

"Yeah, you have, and you know what? You don't have the heart for this anymore. Not sure that's dawned on you yet. But the old Matthias wouldn't be coming to do this personally. It would be business."

"Who says I'm on my way?"

"I do. You have to be. You don't know this either, but you're being compelled to come here and kill an innocent man." The silence told him that he was on the right motherfucking trail. "You don't understand why you have to do it yourself. You don't understand the way you're thinking right now. And you know you're losing control. You're making choices and doing shit that doesn't make any sense. But I can give you the whys--it's because you're being set up by something you wouldn't believe in if I told you it existed. It hasn't totally taken you over yet, though, so there's still time."

Jim paused and let that intel settle into his ex-boss's brain. What Matthias needed was an exorcism, but that required consent. The goal was to get him to the house and go to work on him . . .

And on that note: "It's that thing you called your second in command. He wasn't what you think he was, Matthias." Digging deeper, he pushed. "When he spoke with you, you felt like he made too much sense, right? He influenced you in subtle ways, steering you, always being there when you needed him. It was barely noticeable at first, and then you trusted him, delegated to him, started grooming him as a successor--"

"You don't know what the fuck you're talking about."

"Bull. Shit. I know precisely what's doing. You really were going to let Isaac come back to XOps, weren't you. You were going to try to find a way not to kill him. Weren't you. Matthias . . . ? Matthias, answer the goddamned question."

Long pause. Then a soft reply: "Yes. I was."

"And you didn't tell your number two that--because you know that he would have changed your mind."

"He would have been right, though."

"No, he would have been evil. That's what he was. Think about it. Although you tried to get out of XOps, he pulled you back in."

"FYI, you're talking to a sociopath. So I'm in my element."

"Uh-huh. Right. Sociopaths who are about la vida loca don't plant bombs in the sand and step on them. Admit it, you wanted out back then in the desert --and you want out now. Admit it."

For a while, there was nothing more than that whirring in the background. And then Matthias dropped another bomb, so to speak.

"It was Childe's son."

Jim frowned and recoiled a little. "Excuse me?"

"Childe's son . . . was what changed everything. I watch the tape of it . . . of Childe weeping while his son died in front of him. My father would never have done that if I'd been on that couch. More likely he'd have tapped my vein with the needle. I couldn't get that . . . out of my mind. The way that poor bastard looked and what he'd said . . . he'd loved that kid like a father should."

Yeah, whoa . . . on some level it was hard to imagine Matthias had had a parent. Spawned was more like it.

Jim shook his head, feeling bad for the guy for the first time since they'd met all those years ago. "I'm telling you, let Isaac go. Forget the vengeance. Forget XOps. Forget the past. I'll help you disappear and stay safe. Leave it all behind . . . and trust me."

Long pause. Loooooong pause where there was nothing but that white noise of a car in motion. "You're at a crossroads, Matthias. What you do about Isaac tonight can save you . . . and save him. You have more power than you know. Work with us. Come here and sit down and talk with us."

Probably best to keep the whole slitting him wide with a crystal knife and pulling Devina's pestilence out by the throat thing on the QT for the time being.

Matthias let out a shuddering exhale. "Never pictured you for the `Kumbaya' type."

"People change, Matthias," Jim said roughly. "People can change. You can change."

Standing across the kitchen, Isaac wasn't sure he'd heard right: Matthias had set the bomb that had exploded all over him?

God, he remembered driving that Land Rover through the dunes, back to camp. As soon as Matthias had been unloaded from it, the boys with the bags of blood and the sharpies and the latex gloves had swarmed over him and that was pretty much all Isaac had known.

Bottom line, Heron hadn't said a goddamn thing about the hows or wheres or whys of the explosion, and Isaac hadn't asked. "Need to know" was the rule of thumb in XOps: The boss and an operative show up with one blown into deli meat and the other dragging both their sorry asses through the sand in the middle of the night?

Fine. No biggie. Whatever.

After all, sometimes the information you carried was more dangerous than a loaded gun at your temple.

As Jim abruptly ended the call to the boss, Isaac had a bone to pick with the SOB. "First of all, I don't need you going all martyr on me--so can the `I shot him' shit. And what the hell? Matthias tried to kill himself?"

"First of all," Jim echoed, "I don't do collateral damage, so you can suck it up on whatever I do to save your ass. Second . . . yes. He did. The device was one of ours, and he knew precisely where to step. He met my eyes as he put his foot down . . . and mouthed something." The guy shook his head. "Not a clue what he'd said. Then boom! Most of the detonator was vaporized. But not all of it. Not all."

Fascinating. "How long until he gets here?"

"I don't know. But he's coming. He has to."

Yeah, as for the stuff about the second in command? That was nothing he wanted to know about, frankly. He had enough intel swelling his skull. The only thing he cared about was getting tonight over with.

"I'm shit-tired of waiting," he muttered.

"Join the club."

On that note, Isaac looked around. The ADT system was off and so was the big boy behind Grier's closet, but all the doors were locked, so chances were good they'd know if someone broke in.

"Listen, I'm going to go upstairs," he said. "Keep an eye out up there."

"Okay." Jim's shrewd eyes refocused on the rear garden like he expected an infiltration at any moment. "I'll cover the back forty."

As Isaac went to mount the rear staircase, he paused and leaned back into the kitchen. Heron was standing in front of the glass, hands on his hips, frown clamped on his brow.

No, the guy wasn't dead. And he honestly didn't seem bothered by the reality that a bullet could come crashing through all that see-through at any second.

"Jim."

"Yeah." The man looked over.

"What are you? Really."

As silence stretched, the word "angel" winged around in the space between them. Except surely that wasn't possible?

The man shrugged. "I just am."

Roger that, Isaac thought. "Well . . . thank you."

Jim shook his head. "We're not out of the woods yet."

"Regardless. Thank you." Isaac cleared his throat. "Can't say that anyone has ever stuck their neck out for me like this."

Well, that wasn't true, was it. Grier had in her own way. And God, the mere thought of her nearly made his eyes sting.

Heron bowed a little and seemed honestly touched. "You're welcome, my man. Now quit being a sap and guard the third floor."

Isaac had to smile. "I may need a job after this, you know."

A grin appeared, but faded quick. "I'm not sure you want to go through the job-application process for where I'm at. It's rough."

"Been there. Done that."

"Which was what I thought, too."

With that, Isaac hit the stairs.

Yeah, sure, ostensibly he was going to look out from the top floor, but there was another truth to be had, another driver.

When he entered Grier's bedroom, he went straight to her closet and stood over the mess of clothes that remained on the creamy carpet. She'd left the project of rehanging half-done--because, duh, some asshole had gotten capped in her front hall.

But he could take care of the problem.

As he waited to see whether there was going to be a bizarre kind of reunion with Matthias or a shoot-out that left the pair of them dead, he picked up her blouses and skirts and dresses and, one by one, made order from the chaos.

At least he could clean up something for her; God knew, that body was still downstairs, albeit wrapped in plastic like something about to be shipped through a mail-order house.

There would be time to move it later, however.

And no other opportunity to take care of her things.

Besides, the "sap" in him wanted some kind of final contact with her--and the closest he was going to get was handling with care what had once lain against her precious skin.

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