As Ad weaponed up, Jim checked over Dog and put some food down and then he and his wingman—literally—took off. Man, he’d never been so grateful for the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it ride of those flapping numbers on their backs: Only minutes later, they were in Beacon Hill.

He and Adrian landed in the walled garden in a shimmering blaze and they kept themselves hidden from prying eyes because it was only four in the afternoon. The house looked fine on the outside and the red glimmering spell was still in place, but his neck was killing him. And where in the hell was Eddie—

“Shit,” he spat as he saw the soles of the angel’s combat boots sticking out from under a bush.

Jim beat feet over and crouched down. The guy was flat on his ass, looking like he’d played chicken with a bulldozer and lost. “Eddie?”

The grounded angel opened his eyes. “Holy hell . . . what . . . I don’t know what happened. One minute I was up. Next . . .”

“You were a welcome mat.”

Adrian reached out a hand to help his best friend up. “What the fuck was it?”

“No clue.” Eddie slowly got to his feet. Then he looked over at Jim and cringed. “Jesus Christ . . .”

Jim frowned and glanced around. “What?”

“Your face . . .”

Okay, maybe he only just felt better. Hopefully the looks part would come later. “You’re saying my days as a calendar model are over?”

“Didn’t know you were into that.” Eddie shook his head. “Listen, Isaac wants to talk to you. ASAP.”

Jim glanced at Adrian. “You stay with the welcome mat.”

“Like I would be anywhere else?”

Jim jogged over to the house. The back door was wide open, which was another piece of bad news—and shit only got more critical as he went into the kitchen.

God, you never got used to the smell of a mortal gunshot wound: There were different flavors, gut versus chest versus brain, but the palette was everything metallic between the lead of the shot and the copper of the fresh blood.

First body he found was a man he knew: Captain Alistair Childe. The poor guy was lying in the archway that led out into the front hall, having crumpled to the floor in a heap.

Not the source of the blood, though. There was none on the clothes or the tile, and Childe was breathing evenly in spite of the little knockout nap he was having.

Body number two was halfway down to the front door and clearly the source of the smell. . . . Yeah, wow, that bastard was a candidate for a closed coffin if Jim had ever seen one: His face was distorted from the inside out, the bullet having traveled up the meat and bone of his chin and nose before exiting on a hrow-open-the-doors-and-sing-like-Ethel-Merman routine at the crown of his skull.