File that under: No, really, you supercilious little prick.

Nigel’s voice got dark. “As if I was unaware of that.”

“If I can get to Matthias—”

“You had the chance—”

“I didn’t know it was him! This is bullshit!”

“That is nothing I can change. But I tell you, let the ending happen—”

“Oh, you can’t change anything, but you can get in the way now? Great fucking timing!” Jim was damned well aware that his voice was blaring, but he had no trouble announcing his presence to Devina or anybody else.

“Fuck this, I’m going in—”

On a quick shimmer, Nigel’s form blanketed him from head to foot, the illumination acting as a kind of glue that held him in place. And then that English voice was not just in his ear but through his whole brain.

“What is the truer course? The passionate or the rational? Think, Jim. Think. If one breaks the rules, a punishment flows. Think this through. If one breaks the rules, punishment flows. Think, damn you!”

Rage clouded his mind and shook his body until he thought he would come apart . . . but then suddenly, lightning hit marble head and he realized what the archangel was trying to tell him.

If one breaks the rules . . . punishment flows.

“That’s right, Jim. Take this to its natural conclusion—beyond this night. And know that you shall go farther in this game if you use your head rather than your anger. Please, I implore you, trust in me in this regard.”

Easing up his muscles, Jim felt a curious calm overtake him and he turned his head through the molasses Nigel had created.

Looking at Adrian and Eddie as they ran up, he saw that they were every bit as pissed off as he was. Which given what Nigel was saying wasn’t a value add.

“Trust me, Jim,” Nigel said. “I want to win as badly as you do. I am not without my own burdens of lost loved ones. I too would do aught that it takes to render them a peaceful eternity. Think not that I would e’er steer you upon a wrong course.”

Jim shook his head at his boys.

“Let it go,” Jim said to them. “We’re going to stay on the sidelines. We stay out here.”

As his comrades looked at him like he was out of his cocksucking head, he couldn’t agree more. It was going to kill him to not go in there, but he got the picture . . . and he was ultimately glad the archangel intervened. Thanks to Devina’s making fast and loose with the rules, the best shot Matthias had was Jim staying the fuck out of this.

Even though it went against every instinct he had.