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Caldwell, New York

As Jim Heron stood on the front lawn of the McCready Funeral Home in Caldwell, he could picture the inside sure as if he&039;d already been in the brick two- story: Orientals on the floors, paintings of foggy flower arrangements on the walls, bunches of rooms with double doors and lots of floor space

From his limited experience with them, funeral homes were like fast-food restaurants--they all kind of looked the sauessed that made sense Just like there were only so ined dead bodies were likewise

Shithe couldn&039;t believe he was going in to see his own corpse

Had he really died just two days ago? Was this now his life?

With the way things were going, he felt like sooing, Are these ht?

At least he could answer those: The leather jacket and coood ti a deh he&039;d won the first contest, he was gearing up for the next one without knoho the target was And he was still learning the tricks to the angel trade And, hello, he now had wings

Wings

Although ical feathered flappers had gotten his ass here from Boston, Massachusetts, in lickety- split time

Bottom line? As far as he was concerned, the world he once kneas gone and the new one in its place made his years as an assassin in XOps seem like a desk job

"Man, this rocks I love the creepy shit"

Jiel, was precisely the kind of whack job who&039;d be into a bunch of stiffs having a lie-down in refrigerator units: Pierced, leathered, tattooed, Ad was into the dark side--and given what their neht before last, it was a tay street: The dark side was into him as well

Poor bastard

Jilanced at the saner of his two backups "Thanks for the assist This won&039;t take long"

Eddie Blackhawk nodded "No proble in the stiff April wind, Eddie was his usual biker-ass self, that thick braid of hair running down the back of his leather jacket With his square jaw, and his tanned skin, and his red eyes, he reod--fucker had fists the size of most men&039;s heads, and shoulders you could easily land an airplane on

And what do you know, he wasn&039;t exactly a Boy Scout, even though he had a heart of gold

"Okay, let&039;s do this," Ji that the infiltration was outside the scope of his "e But at least his new CO hadn&039;t had a probleiven permission for this e of the leeway

As Jih the brick walls and took for open foyer with a chandelier and a bunch of dour rugs and enough space for a cocktail partyhe looked around, wondering where the hell the bodies were kept

And just standing in the place reaffirmed the fact that this was a persion he si souls, but right now a man&039;s life was on the line: Isaac Rothe had bolted from the XOps fold, and Jim was supposed to kill him for it

File that under Fuck No

Except here was the problem: The way Matthias the Fucker worked, if Ji to do itand then an operative would come for Jim

Little late on that one, boys--he was already dead

His ioal? Fake out his foret that soldier out of the country and safebefore returning to his day job of going head-to-head with Devina

He hated the delay because no doubt that de out of one life and into another was never simple and never cut-and-dried Inevitably, there were tendrils of what had gone before that you had to snip and cast off, and that took time

The truth of it was: He owed Rothe Back in the desert two years ago, when Jim had needed help, the man had been there for him, and that was a debt you didn&039;t walk away froiven Jinment The fucker ell aware of their connection and of what had transpired that night on the other side of the globe: At the tiht have been in and out of consciousness, but he&039;d tracked enough during those dark hours of transport and flight and

Right Focus Where were the stiffs?

"Downstairs," he said to his boys as he strode over to an Exit sign

On the way to the stairwell, the three of the the things off, and then they ghosted through a closed door one by one

Bringing Adrian and Eddie on this little excursion was safer, because God knew Devina could be anywhere at anyall the tricks that cael, and Eddie was the ic--that wizard and wand shit was Blackhawk&039;s forte

He&039;d clearly gotten his PhD in Abracadabra and didn&039;t that make the SOB handy

Down on the cellar level, everything was stark and clean, the ceray The sweet sht, and as he strode along, he felt like he&039;d ju-around routine was exactly what he&039;d excelled at for all those years with Matthias--and precisely what he&039;d been deteret away from

Yeah, well, all the best-laid plans of mice and men, yada, yada, yada

In his first battle with Devina, he&039;d required some inforo for it Naturally, when it cas were strictly quid pro quo, so if you wanted so and the "quo" had been killing Isaac After all, there were no pink slips for the fired or gold Rolexes for the retired in XOps--you got a bullet in the head and, if you were lucky, maybe a coffin for your corpse

And yet he was curiously grateful: Being assigned to assassinate the guy was the only way to help him; otherwise there would have been no way to know that Isaac had taken off and was now a hunted man: Jim was the only one who&039;d been let out free and clear

But then his situation had put the "by your short hairs" in Matthias&039;s "extenuating circumstances"

He stopped in front of a pair of stainless-steel doors marked STAFF ONLY and looked over his shoulder "Keep your hands to yourself, Adrian"

God knew the angel see thatwould be a rate-li step for him With a curse, Adrian went all holier-than-thou "I only touch if they ask"

"What a relief"

"But you know, reaniht it isn&039;t And certainly not in this place"

"Man, you could suck the fun out of a strip club"

"Pass"

Ghosting into the large, clinical rooues for settings Between the green security lighting, the rolling gurneys, and the drains in the floor, the place was the perfect backdrop for a case of the heebs