Rapture

Chapter Fifty-five

“That hurt, you son of a bitch.”

Jim nearly lost his mind as he looked down at his old boss, who was—surprise!—alive and kicking.

One and only one thought went through his mind: “Do not tell me we’re going for a round three with you.”

As Matthias sat up and rubbed the back of his noggin, he shot a glare upward. “You dropped me on my head.”

“You’re dead!”

“Oh, and that’s an excuse?” The guy stood up and brushed the pea gravel from the seat of his pants. “P.S., I found out what you are.”

Jim started patting his pockets. “In need of a cigarette. Yeah, I am.”

“You’re an angel.”

“Am I?” When he found the pack of Marlboros, he was tempted to take all ten that were left, put them in his mouth, and light them together. “Do I look like one?”

“I met with your Maker.”

Jim froze with his Bic halfway to his lips.

“That’s right.” Matthias looked a little smug. “He says ‘hi,’ by the way—and he likes the turkey subs. Not sure what that means?”

“Excuse me?”

Matthias shrugged. “No clue on that one. But I met him—and I think he likes you. He told me about your game. Good luck with that, by the way—”

Jim presented his palm for review—directly in front of Matthias’s face. “Stop. What the fuck are you doing here?”

Matthias walked around in a little circle like he was choosing his words, or maybe replaying a conversation in his mind. “Well, here’s the thing, it’s not that I don’t trust you, but…she’s my girl. I have to keep her safe. This is the only way.”

“Only way how?”

Matthias pounded his chest with his fist. “I’m back in the saddle again, my friend. Okay, not that saddle—”

“This doesn’t make any sense—”

“It’s a simple case of free will. I went up there.” He looked to the sky and frowned, as if he weren’t entirely sure how all this had happened to him. “There was this massive castle thing—even had a moat in front of the entrance? An Englishman was waiting for me at the fortified doors, at the far end of this plank walkway. I’d seen him before, actually—at the Marriott? And then walking a dog? Anyway, I guess I understood, without being told, that all I had to do was walk across the bridge over the water and I was in forever.”

The words dried up at that point, Matthias’s brows going down hard, his eyes training on the ground.

“Annnnnnnd?” Jim bit out on the exhale.

“I couldn’t do it. I knew if I crossed over there was no going back—I mean, I couldn’t believe where I was. It was awesome, but…not for me.”

“Let me get this straight. You’re volunteering to go to Hell?”

“Not at all. The Maker came from out of nowhere and we talked. In the end, I just gave up one version of the place for another that was so much better. For me? Heaven is with that woman, and I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to prove it to her—even though there’s no guarantees about…well, shit, so much on that one. But I’m clear on the fact that I want to give it a shot.”

“This can’t be right.”

“What can I say? The Maker’s a fan of free will—maybe because if people make good choices, it affirms His creation? I don’t know.”

Jim got right up in the guy’s grille, a strange fury driving him. “This is bullshit—if you get to pick, why doesn’t everyone just stay with the ones they love?”

Like his mother.

Like his Sissy, for godsakes?

Man, he was too fucking tired of being jerked around by this game.

“People do come back from the dead,” Matthias said. “Happens all the time.”

“Not everyone.” Not his dead. This was such bullshit.

“I got lucky. Look, if you have a problem with it, go talk to Him.”

Jim stalked around, smoking, cursing—to the point where he nearly gave the dead operative’s body a kick just because he could.

“Jim?” Matthias said slowly. “What’s going on in that head of yours, my man.”

At that moment, the solution presented itself, something that Nigel had said in the beginning of the round returning to him, taking root, and sprouting into a plan that was so heretical, it gave him pause even in his anger. But then he remembered things that Matthias had told him about the down below—and looked into the other man’s face, his living, breathing, like-he’d-never-been-shot face.

The violent heat in Jim’s gut was utterly familiar, the same force that had led him to fuck Devina, the same burn that sometimes took over and made him cruel, the same shit that had brought him to his first killings—of the men who had taken his mother’s life.

This was the devil in him, he thought, this fury that had flared…and would soon settle into a cold determination that was going to change the shape of the game.

But goddamn it, as Matthias had said, some things you have to do yourself.

“Listen, Jim, how about we get rid of this body, and then go looking for the car he came in? I could really use a set of wheels that’s not a rental, and with some work, I could locate the GPS on it and get rid of the thing.”

“Yeah,” Jim said offhandedly. “Sure.”

“Are you okay?”

Nope. “Yeah.” He stamped his cigarette butt out on the heel of his boot. “Sure.”