“Hey, mate,” the guy said as he knelt down. “I’ve come to get you out of here.”

From somewhere, God only knew where, Jim called up enough energy to speak. “Take her instead. Leave me . . . take her instead. Sissy. The girl . . .”

“That I can’t do. I shouldn’t be here even now.” The angel leaned forward and gathered Jim’s broken form into his arms. “But you’re going to need some recovery time before you can so much as sit up, much less drag ass out of here. And the war is proceeding without you.”

No argument there on his energy level, but God, he’d rather have Sissy a million miles away from here.

“Leave me,” he moaned.

“Not on your life. You want Sissy free? You beat Devina. That’s how you unlock this nightmare for your girl.”

As they began to levitate, Jim’s head lolled to the side and he watched as up, up, up they went, past yards and yards—hell, miles—of the black walls. Along the way, Colin’s glowing form illuminated the shifting, churning surface, and faces pushed against the opaque, liquid barrier, as if those trapped were trying to see them, get to them, join them in the escape. From every direction, hands reached out, contouring into grotesque shapes as the tensile strength of the prison proved too hard to get through.

Where was his girl? His beautiful, innocent girl who . . .

Jim’s brain ran out of gas, the weave of his thoughts unraveling, consciousness giving up the ghost and going in for a deep lie-down in the hard-walled crib of his skull.

As he passed out, his last mental missive was a prayer—that Sissy would remember Dog in this hellish place and hold on until Jim could get to her.

CHAPTER 33

CHAPTER 33

Down in the wine cellar, with Jim Heron’s picture staring up out of a dossier, Isaac was pretty damn sure both Childes had lost their minds.

“He’s not dead.” Isaac glanced between father and daughter. “I’m not sure what you saw or what you heard—”

“He was in my room.” Grier shook her head. “That’s how I knew you were having the nightmare. He pointed the way so I would go to you. I thought it was a dream, but why would I have pictured his face so clearly?”

“Because you saw him. Last night at the fight. He was with me.”

“No, he wasn’t.”

Right. The guy had stood directly in front of her. “You said he was an angel.”

“Well, it appeared as if he had wings.”