Back in Beacon Hill, Isaac walked up the town house's front stairs, paused at the second-floor landing and then kept going to Grier's bedroom. In her private space, he paced around the bed, and felt like he was losing his ever-loving mind.

He checked her alarm clock. Walked to the French doors. Looked out onto the terrace.

Nothing moved outside, and there was no one else in the house but him and Jim.

Time was passing, but nobody was showing, and no matter how many times he went down to Jim and then came back upstairs again, he wasn't able to jump-start the next sequence of events.

It was like a director with no bullhorn and a cast and crew who didn't give a shit what he had to say.

The inescapable fear that drove him was that they were in the wrong place. That he and Jim were cooling their heels out here while the action was happening elsewhere. Like Grier's father's farmhouse.

On a vicious curse, he headed back for the staircase and jogged downward, expecting nothing else along the way or at the bottom other than a short pause in the kitchen and another trip up.

Except . . .

When he came to the landing, the front door down below creaked as if it were being opened. Palming his guns, he was ready to pounce--until he heard Jim's annoyed voice rising up.

"What are you doing here?" Heron demanded.

"You texted us."

Isaac frowned at the sound of the pierced man's voice.

"No, I did not."

"Yeah, you did."

At that moment, the Life Alert went off with a subtle shimmy in Isaac's pocket.

All instincts firing, he ducked quietly into the guest-room he'd stayed in. Holding the transmitter in his palm, he activated the device, and this time there was no delay in response.

Matthias answered right away. "I have your girl at her dear old dad's place. Get out here. You have a half hour."

"If you hurt her--"

"Time's wasting. And it goes without saying that you come alone. Don't keep me waiting, or I'm likely to get bored and have to fill my time. You won't like that, I promise. Be here in thirty."

The light went out, the transmission ending sharply.

When Isaac wheeled around to leave, he jumped back. Jim had somehow made it up the stairs and through the closed door to stand right behind him.

"He has her," Jim said flatly. "Doesn't he."

"I'm going solo or he'll kill her."

Shoving the man out of the way, Isaac jogged downstairs. The body in the front hall had been frisked for weapons before it had been gift wrapped, but car keys were another thing.

Bingo. Front pocket. Ford.

Now to find the bastard's ride.

When Isaac stood up, he realized everything was totally silent and nobody was in the front hall. Glancing around, he had the feeling he was alone in the house even though he hadn't a clue how they'd moved out so fast.

Whatever--fuck it. And fuck them.

Isaac lit for the door--but at the last minute, he pivoted in the archway and went back to the body to strip it some more. Then he shot out into the darkness.

The unmarked that he'd watched from the Pinckney Street house the day before was parked a block up, and the dead guy's key got him in. Engine started just fine and the GPS was functional, so he quickly plugged in the address Grier's father had given them all.

"Bat out of hell" described the trip.

He went flat-out on the Mass Pike, pushing the speed limit until he busted the fucker into pieces. Even still, it felt like he was moving in slow motion --and that got worse when he left the highway and tried to get through some town that was filled with stop signs and curvy roads.

Fortunately, the GPS took him exactly where he needed to go, his destination fronted by a pair of stone markers that sat on either side of a pale, glowing drive.

He canned the headlights and hung a right, downshifting from rush, rush, rush to slow, slow, slow. Cracking his window so he could hear better, he inched along, hating the sound of the tires crunching over a million seashells. The only good news was that the perma-glow of the city didn't exist out here in the semi-sticks, and the moon was covered by clouds. But how much you want to bet they had motion-activated exteriors on the house and/ or trees?

Isaac rolled up behind another unmarked that had to be Matthias's car. A K-turn later and he was facing out. Taking the keys with him, he jogged along the fringes of the lawn, his senses alive, his rage an inferno in his blood.

Matthias would die if he laid even a finger on Grier. One hair out of place on that woman and that bastard was going to get slaughtered.

As he approached the house, he searched out the doors. The front was open and he couldn't see the back.

But then what did it matter--he was expected. And on that note, he should just fuck the DL ninja shit and announce himself.

Coming up to the farmhouse's entrance, he kept his guns hidden and his eyes sharp as he curled up a fist and beat at the wooden jamb.

"Matthias," he called out.

As he stepped inside, the resounding silence was more terrifying than any scream or pool of blood. Because God only knew what he was walking into.

Jim had had a plan as he and the angels had flashed to Grier's father's place. He hadn't wanted to leave Isaac on his own back in town, but all they would have done was argue, and God knew the canny bastard could take care of himself.

Bottom line, Devina was playing deadly games, and that was something only Jim could deal with. And having a delay before Isaac arrived might not be a bad thing: If Matthias had done anything to that Grier woman, the soldier was going to be impossible to control.

Yup, as Jim landed and went gunning for the open door of the farmhouse with his wingmen in tow, he was prepared to take care of things.

Nigel, however, derailed him.

The archangel appeared right in his path, and this time he wasn't in his tuxedo or his croquet whites or a nice little dapper-ass seersucker: He was nothing but a glowing form, a wavy silhouette of rippling light.

And he spoke only one word: "No."

As Jim hauled up on his momentum, he would have punched the fucker if there had been anything solid to aim for. "What the fuck is the matter with you!" First the mislead over Isaac and now this? "The die is cast." Nigel lifted his barely-there hand. "And if you intervene now, you will ultimately lose."

Jim pointed through the open door. "There's a man's soul at risk."

File that under: No, really, you supercilious little prick.

Nigel's voice got dark. "As if I was unaware of that."

"If I can get to Matthias--"

"You had the chance--"

"I didn't know it was him! This is bullshit!"

"That is nothing I can change. But I tell you, let the ending happen--"

"Oh, you can't change anything, but you can get in the way now? Great fucking timing!" Jim was damned well aware that his voice was blaring, but he had no trouble announcing his presence to Devina or anybody else.

"Fuck this, I'm going in--"

On a quick shimmer, Nigel's form blanketed him from head to foot, the illumination acting as a kind of glue that held him in place. And then that English voice was not just in his ear but through his whole brain.

"What is the truer course? The passionate or the rational? Think, Jim. Think. If one breaks the rules, a punishment flows. Think this through. If one breaks the rules, punishment flows. Think, damn you!"

Rage clouded his mind and shook his body until he thought he would come apart . . . but then suddenly, lightning hit marble head and he realized what the archangel was trying to tell him.

If one breaks the rules . . . punishment flows.

"That's right, Jim. Take this to its natural conclusion--beyond this night. And know that you shall go farther in this game if you use your head rather than your anger. Please, I implore you, trust in me in this regard."

Easing up his muscles, Jim felt a curious calm overtake him and he turned his head through the molasses Nigel had created.

Looking at Adrian and Eddie as they ran up, he saw that they were every bit as pissed off as he was. Which given what Nigel was saying wasn't a value add.

"Trust me, Jim," Nigel said. "I want to win as badly as you do. I am not without my own burdens of lost loved ones. I too would do aught that it takes to render them a peaceful eternity. Think not that I would e'er steer you upon a wrong course."

Jim shook his head at his boys.

"Let it go," Jim said to them. "We're going to stay on the sidelines. We stay out here."

As his comrades looked at him like he was out of his cocksucking head, he couldn't agree more. It was going to kill him to not go in there, but he got the picture . . . and he was ultimately glad the archangel intervened. Thanks to Devina's making fast and loose with the rules, the best shot Matthias had was Jim staying the fuck out of this.

Even though it went against every instinct he had.

After a moment, Nigel slowly extricated himself, and his magical illumination gradually dispersed. In its absence, Jim fell to his knees on the grass, his eyes locked on the open door of the clapboard house as Adrian and Eddie started to go off on him, demanding an explanation for the halt order.

Around the fringes of his mind and emotions, the urge to fly into the path of whatever Devina had engineered still tantalized him.

Especially as he thought of Isaac's woman in the hands of Matthias--

Oh, God . . . Rothe was going to be sacrificed, wasn't he.

Jim's hands sought out the earth and he dug into the lawn with his fingers, holding his body in place.

Bowing his head, he prayed that his faith was well placed and good would, eventually, prevail. But the sad fact was, doing the right thing was going to be the death of a man who didn't deserve to die tonight.

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