As he hit the lobby, a chirpy woman behind the desk “Good evening, sir”’d him, but he waved her off and broke into a jog. There was no waiting for the elevator; a couple was checking in with their kids and they had a cart full of luggage. But even if there had been a clean shot, he wouldn’t have been able to wait for so much as the doors to open for him.

Up the stairs. Two at a time. Sometimes three.

When he got to the top floor, his ticker was going a mile a minute, and not just because he’d exerted himself. He didn’t have a key to Jim’s room, so he took his own and slipped it in and out of the lock of his crib.

He opened the way in on a burst. “Jim? Jim?”

The glow from his bathroom illuminated the rumpled bed that he and Eddie had worked that girl out on the night before, as well as the clothes that were scattered around.

The connector to Jim’s was half open, the room beyond dark.

“Jim . . . ?”

He knew the angel was in there. He could smell the candle smoke and the fresh blood and . . . the other things.

The rush to get to the guy evaporated as the reality of what he was about to walk in on clawed its way into his chest and suffocated him. But he was not turning back. He was an asshole of the first order, always had been. He was not, however, a pussy to turn away from the hard stuff.

Adrian walked to the doorway between the two rooms and leaned in. “Jim.”

The light in the bathroom behind him cut a path into all the pitch-black, the illumination stopping at the foot of the angel’s bed . . . as if it were too polite to show his condition.

After Adrian rounded the jamb, it took a moment for his eyes to adjust—

On a hiss, he vowed, “I’m going to kill that bitch. . . .”

Jim was lying on his side, curled into himself as if to conserve body heat, and he was trembling in fits and starts. A blanket had been pulled over his big, battered body—no doubt by the archangel—and Dog was right by his face, pretzeled into a ball, going nowhere.

As Adrian came over, he got a little wag, but the animal didn’t lift his head, staying nose-to-nose with Jim.

The angel appeared to be breathing, his chest rising and falling, a soft wheeze breaching his busted mouth. His hair was matted and there was blood on his face, the features of which no longer looked like his own, thanks to a Michelin Man-like swelling.

Adrian sat down slowly. “Jim?”

No response, so he tried the name game a couple more times. Eventually, Jim’s lid cracked.

“Hey,” Adrian whispered.