Usually Matthias sent his second in command to do the double-check, but Jim was going to make certain the big man himself was the one to do it in this case. The bastard was hard to flush out of hiding, and Jim needed his own face time with the guy.

The only way to make that happen was to use his own frozen ass as a lure.

And a little of Eddie’s magic.

Checking the nameplates set into the holders on the front of the doors, he found himself between D’Arterio, Agnes, and Rutherford, James.

Flipping the latch, he opened the three-foot-by-two-foot door . . . and pulled his dead body out of the refrigerator. There was a sheet covering him from head to foot, and his arms had been neatly tucked in by his sides. The air that wafted out of his hole was cold and dry and smelled like antifreeze.

Man, as many stiffs as he’d seen over his violent and bloody life, this skeeved him out.

“Give me my marching orders,” he said to Eddie grimly.

“Do you have the summoning object?” the angel asked, coming to stand on the other side.

Jim reached into his pocket and took out a small piece of wood that had been carved many, many years before in the tropics on the far side of the planet. He and Matthias had not always been at odds and Matthias hadn’t always been the boss.

And back when they’d both been grunts on the floor level of XOps, Jim had taught the guy how to whittle.

The miniature horse was done with surprising competence, considering it had been the first and only thing Matthias had carved. If memory served, it had taken about two hours—which was why it was being used: Apparently, inanimate objects did more than just collect dust. They were sponges for the essence of whoever owned or made or used them, and what lingered in the space between the molecules was very useful if you knew what to do with it.

Jim held the horse up. “Now what.”

Eddie whipped the sheet off Jim’s gray, mottled face. For a moment, it was hard to concentrate on anything but what he looked like forty-eight hours dead. Holy hell, the Grim Reaper was no makeup artist; that was for sure. Even Goths had better complexions.

“Hey, don’t be harshing on my peeps,” Adrian cut in. “I’d do one of us way before some SoCal bimbo with plastic melons and a spray tan.”

“Stop reading my mind, motherfucker. And you’d do the bimbo anyway.”

Adrian grinned and flexed his heavy arms. “Yeah. I would. And her sister.”

Yup, that angel appeared to be over whatever the demon Devina had done to him the night of Jim’s official “death.” Either that or all the self-medicating with living, breathing Barbies had exhausted any introspection right out of him.