My gaze shifted in that direction. There could be something hiding there—several somethings. Although the lack of a warning from Ruthie indicated that whatever I’d heard had probably been human.
Not that a human couldn’t be a huge pain in the ass. They usually were. And anyone sneaking around in the dark just had to be.
As I slid along the side of the building, back to the wall, I caught movement near the river and spun in that direction, gun outstretched. For an instant I could have sworn something slunk there, low to the ground, a black, four-legged . . .
I blinked, and the shadow was just a shadow, perhaps a log with four branches, perhaps the reflection of a distant streetlight off the river. There were also foxes in Friedenberg, a few coyotes, and dogs galore. But that had looked like a wolf.
“Sawyer?” I whispered. My only answer was the high-pitched keening of the wind.
I lifted my face, waiting for the air to cool my skin. Instead humid heat pressed against me; there wasn’t even a hint of a breeze. Not the wind then, but definitely a wail.
Shit. Luther.
I sprinted toward the front of the building. Every instinct I had shrieked for me to skid around the corner gun blazing, but charging into the open was a good way to get my head blown off. I didn’t think even that would kill me, but it would take a helluva long time to heal. By then Luther could be dead.
There was also the added concern of a possible pregnancy. I didn’t want to be pregnant, could think of little I wanted less than that, except maybe slow, torturous death by Nephilim, but what was, was. If I carried Sawyer’s child, he, she, or it was all that was left of his magic, beyond what he’d given to me. I had to protect his gift. I’d promised.
Fighting the adrenaline, I peeked around the edge of the building. Four am on a Saturday and Main Street was deserted. Friedenberg boasted its share of taverns—this was Wisconsin, after all—but they’d closed on time, and everyone had skittered home.
Not a sign of Luther. Hell.
“Kid?” I didn’t want to shout, but pretty soon I would have to.
I hurried along the front of the knickknack shop, so intent on the next corner I nearly missed what rested in the shrouded alcove of the doorway. I’d already scooted past when what I’d seen registered. I stopped and took several steps in retreat.
On the landing sat a blanket-shrouded basket. Despite the lack of light in the alcove, and the lack of color to the blanket—either black or navy blue—I still detected movement beneath.
The back of my neck prickled, and I had to fight not to slap at an imaginary mosquito. I dared not touch that area unless I meant to. Sawyer wasn’t the only one with tattoos, nor the ability to use them.
Had someone brought me a basket of poisonous snakes, tarantulas, or Gila monsters? Maybe something new like a land shark, a water-free jellyfish, a teenie-tiny vampire. Believe me, I’d seen stranger things.
The wail I’d heard before came again—from the basket. I leaned over, caught the end of the coverlet with the barrel of my Glock, and lifted. What I saw inside made my heart beat faster than any vampire ever had. I let the blanket fall into place and nearly tripped over my own feet in my haste to back away.
“Fan-damn-tastic,” I muttered.
Someone had left me a baby.
CHAPTER 2
The child started to cry in earnest; the sound could no longer be mistaken for the wind. Pretty soon someone was going to come outside and ask why I was creeping around with a gun. They’d also want to know why there was a baby in a basket on my front porch. I kind of wanted to know that myself.
I inched closer, yanked the blanket off with my hand this time. The kid blinked. Long dark lashes framed light eyes, the exact color indeterminate in the night. The round face darkened as the baby drew a deep breath and really let loose.
“Pick her up.”
I started so violently, I almost dropped the gun. Luther carefully removed the weapon from my hand.
“Her?” I asked, and he shrugged.
“Looks like a her, doesn’t it?”
The child wore only a disposable diaper, but it was pink. I guess that should have been my first clue.
“Pick her up, Liz, before my head explodes.”
“Why don’t you pick her up?” I tried to retrieve the guns, but Luther held them above his head. Though I was tall at five-ten, I still couldn’t reach them. By the time he finished growing, Luther would rival LeBron in size.
“Not a chance,” he said.
“Rats,” I muttered.
Fuck, I thought.
Leaning over the basket, I slid my hands under the baby. She was warm and wiggly, kind of like a puppy without the fur. Maybe ten pounds, a couple of feet long, I had no clue how old she might be, but she looked young—little, helpless, fragile. She scared the shit out of me.
As I lifted, she continued to cry. I couldn’t blame her. I’d been dumped on a doorstep, too. If I’d known what was going to happen to me in the next decade, I’d have screamed my head off. Hell, maybe I had.
“Any note?” I asked.
Luther peered into the depths of the basket. “Nope.”
“Fabulous.” I was having a hard time with the kid, who continued to squirm as if she wanted me to drop her.
“Sheesh,” Luther said. “Watch her head.”
He transferred both guns to a single huge paw before grabbing my hand and showing me how to cup her skull with my fingers while pressing my palm against her neck.
“Put her against your shoulder.” He pantomimed the movement then reached over and patted her back. “Sometimes they like that.”
The baby hiccuped—once, twice—took a deep breath, and I tensed, waiting for her to blow out my eardrum with the next wail. Instead she wiggled her butt and cuddled closer, then began to suck on my T-shirt.
“How do you know so much about babies?” I asked.
“I have held one before. What’s your excuse?”
“She’s my first.”
“You’ve never held a baby?” Luther’s voice was as incredulous as his face. “How’d you manage that?”
“Wasn’t easy,” I muttered.
Sure I’d lived in a group home, but Ruthie hadn’t taken in many babies. They required too much care, and her specialty was troubled preteens. Most people thought Ruthie preferred adolescents because she was good with them, and she was. But in truth, the supernatural talents of many breeds appeared or strengthened at puberty.
Ruthie ran that group home not so much for the benefit of those she took in as for the benefit of the federation. She was searching for recruits. That countless children were saved from life on the streets or in an unpleasant foster home because of her was a happy accident, nothing more.
“You don’t have any friends with kids?” Luther pressed.
I had one friend, Megan, and she had three kids. But I’d been so uncomfortable around them as babies that she hadn’t allowed me to touch them—afraid, I was sure, that I’d drop them on their heads.
“We should go inside,” I said, ignoring Luther’s question. “Grab the basket.”
After setting the guns at the bottom, he picked up the carrier, revealing a pink blanket on the step. Luther lifted the material, and it tumbled downward. Tiny kittens gamboled across the flannel.
“Maybe this is what she wanted.” Gently Luther settled the blanket over the baby.
Light flashed so brightly the entire sky seemed to fill with it. In my arms the child shifted and wriggled. I tightened my grip, afraid she’d slip free.
“Shh,” I murmured, hoping to keep her from crying again.
Meow, she said.
I looked down. I now held a fuzzy black kitten.
A police car turned left at the single flashing streetlight and rolled in our direction. With only three thousand people in our tiny suburb on the river, and most of those fairly wealthy two-career families and their kids, the cops had little to do in Friedenberg beyond harass the teenagers and chat wi
th the populace. While a kitten would be a lot easier to explain than a baby, and our guns were safely out of sight in the basket, I still hurried toward the back door.
Though I’d been one once, cops now made me nervous, perhaps because I was breaking the law daily. And I wasn’t jaywalking or parking in a red zone. I was committing murder, with a little fraud and sometimes a kidnapping on the side. Explaining that the “people” I’d killed weren’t people would only get me locked up in a mental institution instead of the women’s state prison.
Sure, I could get out. Wouldn’t take much effort at all. If I became an escaped convict, however, I’d have not only the Nephilim after me but local law enforcement, too. Once I crossed state lines, the feds would get involved, and we’d have chaos on multiple fronts.
I needed to have unimpeded freedom to move across the country by any means necessary, including air travel. Which meant having my name and face on a “most wanted” list was not the way to go.
I clattered up the steps, then closed and locked the door. The kitten squirmed, and when I held her more tightly, she scratched me, so I put her down. She promptly scooted under the bed.
“I guess we don’t have to wonder whose kid that is.”
Luther seemed a little shook up. His eyes were huge, and he kept glancing at the place the kitten had disappeared as if he expected her to crawl back out—on human hands and knees. Maybe she would. I found his nervousness strange considering he’d seen people turn into all sorts of things. Of course he’d never seen a baby turn into a kitten.
Neither had I.
I tossed the blanket and the now empty pink diaper onto the table. “Guess not.”
“What do you think her name is?”
As if he were speaking right next to me, I heard again Sawyer’s words. Protect that gift of—
“Faith,” I blurted. “Her name’s Faith.”
“You sure?”
I sighed. “Yeah.”
“Who’s her mama?”
“Got me.” With Sawyer, could be damn near anyone.
“You think she brought Faith here?” Luther continued.
“Her mother?” I frowned. “Why would she?” Luther’s bony, leonine shoulders shifted beneath his skin as he shrugged. “Maybe she’s in trouble.”
“Join the club,” I muttered, contemplating the set of eyes shining beneath the bed. In the instant before she’d leaped from my arms I’d seen that those eyes were gray, like Sawyer’s. “What am I going to do with a baby?”
“Protect her.” I narrowed my gaze on Luther, who held up his hands in surrender. “Aren’t you?”
“Of course. But—”
There were half demons all over the place that needed killing. I couldn’t cart around a baby while doing that. I supposed I could wrap her in the blanket then put her in a cage.
I winced. Or not.
“Get Ruthie,” I ordered.
Luther didn’t argue. He merely closed his eyes and did whatever it was that he had to do to bring her forth. Seconds later, when Luther opened those eyes, Ruthie stared out.
It was the strangest thing. Luther’s gaze was hazel, amber when his lion threatened, but when he channeled Ruthie his irises went deep brown. He moved differently, too—no longer the broad hand movements and rapid footsteps of a teenage boy, but the graceful gestures and measured gait of an old woman.
“I was just gonna come to you, child.” Ruthie’s voice flowed out of Luther’s mouth.
“Why?”
“Found us another skinwalker. His name is Sani.”
Sawyer’s knowledge of magic had died with him. I might now possess his power, but I had no clue how to use it. Hence Ruthie’s search for another of my kind. Sawyer had been able to talk to the dead, and right now . . . I really needed to.
“Man taught Sawyer everything he knew,” she continued.
“The guy’s still alive?” Since Sawyer was ancient, Sani had to be Mesozoic.
Ruthie gave me a long look out of Luther’s face. A skinwalker only died if he chose to, therefore most of them were probably older than the hills—literally.
“How do I find him?” I asked.
“Take a right at the Badlands and don’t stop until you hit the Black Hills. Place called Inyan Kara. Sacred mountain of the Lakota.”
“Skinwalkers are Navajo. What the hell is one doing on Lakota land?”
“Sacred mountain is a sacred mountain, and skin-walkers need one of their own. Mount Taylor has belonged to Sawyer since—”
“The dawn of time,” I muttered.
“Close enough.”
“If this man taught Sawyer, why didn’t he snatch Mount Taylor for himself?”
“He did.”
“Yet he’s in South Dakota.”
“Wyoming,” she corrected. “Inyan Kara is found in the portion of the Black Hills located in Wyoming. Creates a sacred triangle with Bear Butte and Devil’s Tower. Powerful magic.”
“Lakota magic.”
Luther’s bony shoulders rippled again. “Sani can draw magic from any mountain.”
“I still don’t see why he gave up Mount Taylor.”
“He didn’t give it up,” Ruthie said, and something in her voice told me the truth.
“Sawyer took it from him.”
Luther’s chin dipped toward his chest in acknowledgment.
“Guy’s going to be so happy to help me raise the man who stole his magic mountain,” I muttered. Indians are understandably touchy on the subject of land grabbing.
“Sani will help you. He’ll have to.”
“Why?”
“When your journey is complete, you’ll know all you need to know.”
I really hated it when Ruthie said shit like that.
I didn’t bother to quiz her about what I’d learn from the journey. Even if she knew, she wouldn’t tell me. The journey was part of the . . . journey.
“What does Sani mean?” I asked.
“Old One.”
“What did they call him when he was young?”
“Sani was never young.”
I opened my mouth then shut it again. I really didn’t want to know.
“What’s wrong?” Ruthie asked. “I figured you’d grab your bag and be out the door before the location left my mouth.”
I’d thought I would be, too. But while I wouldn’t pose questions about my journey, I did have questions about something else.
“I have a little problem,” I said, then lowered myself to my knees and dragged the hissing, spitting kitten from beneath the mattress.
Ruthie stared at it for a minute then lifted her gaze to mine. “Got no time for a pet.”
“This was a baby ten minutes ago.”
Luther’s bushy brows lifted. “Don’t say.”
“Do.”
Ruthie snorted. “Well. How’d that happen?”
I let the kitten skitter back beneath the bed and reached for the blanket, holding the soft material up so she could see the truth. “Get the picture?”
Luther’s eyes widened. “No foolin’?”
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
I wasn’t sure I believed her. Ruthie existed these days in her own personal heaven. There the sun always shone and it never, ever rained. She watched over children who’d left this earth too soon, usually violently, giving them extra love and attention before sending them on their way into the light.
She also directed our side of the war from beyond. I might carry the title leader of the light, but the true leader was Ruthie and always would be.
However, sometimes she kept things from us. She had her reasons, or so she said. She also manipulated us, lied to us, and moved us around like living chess pieces. At times I’d hated her for it. Eventually I’d come to understand she’d do anything to save the world, because so would I.
“You’d have no clue who her mother might be?” That was bothering me more and more. The mother. Who was she? Where was she? Most importantly . . .
What was she?
“None,” Ruthie answered.
“Huh.” I wasn’t sure what I was going to do about that. As far as I knew, Sawyer didn’t have a little black book.
“We’re going to have to work something out for the child,” Ruthie said. “You need to go to Sani. He no longer leaves Inyan Kara.”
“Cursed?” Until recently Sawyer had been unable to leave Navajo land as a man. His whack-job of an evil spirit bitch mother had cursed him. No sooner had the curse been broken, allowing him to walk on two feet instead of four anywhere that he wanted, than I’d had to kill him. Talk about bad luck.
“Yes.” Ruthie shook her head, and Luther’s curls bobbed. “No. Well, you’ll see.”
I loved it when I knew exactly what I was getting into.
“What am I going to do with—?” I jabbed my thumb toward the bed.
“Protect her.”
Sheesh, I wished someone would sing a new tune.
“How?”
“You need a powerful ally who’s been fighting Nephilim for a long time, who’s very, very good at killing. Someone you trust. Someone who would do anything you asked just because you asked and would die before he let you down.”
“Ah, hell,” I muttered. “Not him.”
CHAPTER 3
“Yes,” Ruthie said. “Him. Take the child to Jimmy.”
Jimmy Sanducci and I had history—a lot of it. We’d loved and lost each other and then—
I wasn’t quite sure what to call what had happened lately. I still loved him, but I kind of thought he hated me. I couldn’t blame him, but it still hurt. Declaring to the universe that I also loved Sawyer had not helped the situation.
Jimmy and Sawyer did not care for each other. Asking Sanducci to watch over Sawyer’s child was going to be as much fun as asking your boss for a raise right after you wrecked the company car.
“There’s gotta be an easier way.”
“In your experience, Lizbeth, is there ever an easier way?”
“No.”
“You can’t send another to Inyan Kara. You have to be the one to go.”
Chaos Bites Page 2