Wings.

Although maybe bitching about that was a lie, as his pair of magical feathered flappers had gotten his ass here from Boston, Massachusetts, in lickety-split time.

Bottom line? As far as he was concerned, the world he once knew was gone and the new one in its place made his years as an assassin in XOps seem like a desk job.

“Man, this rocks. I love the creepy shit.”

Jim looked over his shoulder. Adrian, last name Vogel, was precisely the kind of whack job who’d be into a bunch of stiffs having a lie-down in refrigerator units: Pierced, leathered, tattooed, Ad was into the dark side-and given what their nemesis had done to the angel the night before last, it was a two-way street: The dark side was into him as well.

Poor bastard.

Jim rubbed his eyes and glanced at the saner of his two backups. “Thanks for the assist. This won’t take long.”

Eddie Blackhawk nodded. “No problem.”

Standing in the stiff April wind, Eddie was his usual biker-ass self, that thick braid of hair running down the back of his leather jacket. With his square jaw, and his tanned skin, and his red eyes, he reminded Jim of an Incan war god-fucker had fists the size of most men’s heads, and shoulders you could easily land an airplane on.

And what do you know, he wasn’t exactly a Boy Scout, even though he had a heart of gold.

“Okay, let’s do this,” Jim muttered, knowing that the infiltration was outside the scope of his “employment” so they’d better shake a leg. But at least his new CO hadn’t had a problem with it: Nigel, the tight-ass English archangel, had given permission for this morbid diversion, but there was no reason to take advantage of the leeway.

As Jim and his boys dematerialized through the brick walls and took form in… yup, yup, a big open foyer with a chandelier and a bunch of dour rugs and enough space for a cocktail party… he looked around, wondering where the hell the bodies were kept.