“I don’t know what happens then,” I snapped. “All I know is that I have to talk to him one more time.”
“You think he’ll forgive you?”
“I don’t think he blames me.”
“No.” Jimmy turned away. “That’s all you.”
Jimmy and Summer had left Jimmy’s black Hummer at the base of Sheep Mountain. I couldn’t believe we hadn’t seen the thing on our way up. It was visible from outer space.
“We can ride there in the Impala,” I offered.
“My Impala?” Summer muttered.
“Not anymore. Forfeit your soul, forfeit your very cool car. It’s in the manual.”
“There’s a manual?”
I wasn’t actually going to keep the Impala. But I was going to use the vehicle for as long as she’d let me get away with it.
“Can I drive?” Luther had returned. I didn’t even bother to answer.
We piled inside and made our way down Sheep Mountain. Summer sat in the front seat and held Faith. The kitten’s eyes were heavy. She’d had an upsetting day.
The men were in back, spears across their laps. Which reminded me. I glanced in the rearview mirror.
“What did you put on the tips?” At Jimmy’s confused frown, I elaborated. “To kill the Iyas.”
Understanding dawned. “Vitamin D.”
Now I frowned. “Huh?”
“Lack of sunlight causes vitamin D deficiency. Increase of vitamin D cures that, so to reproduce the effects of the sun we coated the tips of the spears with vitamin D.”
Sometimes the methods of ending these creatures were almost as bizarre as the creatures themselves.
We neared the foot of the mountain and, sure enough, there on a dusty side track sat Jimmy’s Hummer. He’d done a decent job camouflaging it with brush. The storm clouds had done the rest. Now the hood of the SUV reflected the sun, drawing the attention of every passerby—if there’d been any—to what appeared to be a behemoth alien land cruiser.
I’d said it before, so I said it again. “Whoever thought selling US Army tactical vehicles to the public was a good idea?”
Jimmy lifted his hand. He loved that damn thing.
As we climbed out of the Impala I realized that I’d neglected to mention the reason we’d come to the Badlands in the first place.
“I need a favor.”
“I’m not coming with you to the Black Hills to raise Sawyer.” Jimmy opened the rear door on the Hummer and tossed the spears inside.
“I didn’t ask you to.”
That surprised him. He’d been headed toward the driver’s seat, but now stopped and turned. “Then what do you want?”
“For you to watch the baby while I search the Black Hills for Sani, the skinwalker.”
“Watch the baby,” he repeated. “Where’s her mom?”
“That’s almost as good a question as Who’s her mom?”
“You don’t know?”
“Why would I?”
“You didn’t ask?”
“A kitten?”
Jimmy made a sound of annoyance. “Sawyer.”
“Dead, remember?”
“You said he was in your dreams.”
“He is, but it’s strange. You know how dreamwalking feels?” Jimmy nodded. “It’s not like that.”
“Because the dead don’t dream.”
“Is that on a T-shirt or something?” I snapped.
Jimmy just lifted a brow and waited for me to go on.
“I can’t control the dream. I can’t get Sawyer to answer questions. He tells me things, but not everything. And I don’t know if it’s really him in there”—I rapped my knuckles lightly against my temple—“or if it’s just me wishing he were.”
“What about Ruthie? Doesn’t she have any info about the kid?”
“She was as surprised to see Faith as I was. Claims she knows nothing about her.”
“You believe that?”
I sighed. “I’m not sure.”
Ruthie had lied to us both when it suited her—always for the good of the world. That didn’t make her lies any easier to stomach, and it didn’t make her any easier to trust now that we knew about them. But it was also difficult not to trust her since we had for most of our lives, and in the end we all wanted the same thing.
To save the world.
“I guess you have more than a few questions for Sawyer.”
“More than a few,” I agreed.
“Why drag the kid all the way here?” Jimmy asked.
“Ruthie—”
“Said,” Jimmy finished. “But why? What’s wrong with Luther?”
I glanced over my shoulder. Luther and Summer were playing with Faith. They’d each grabbed a pussy willow, and the kitten was trying to catch one, but she couldn’t decide which one to grab. She glanced back and forth, back and forth. Then she’d snatch at a fuzzy toy, only to have it rise higher than she could jump. So she’d lose interest and focus on the other one, only to repeat the same process. The scene could make Norman Rockwell sit up in his grave just to paint it.
“What happened?” Jimmy asked. He always knew when something had.
Quickly I told him about the men in the motel room—what they’d known, what they hadn’t, and what Sawyer—be he dream or vision—had said.
“They’re after her because of who she will become,” Jimmy repeated.
I spread my hands. “I promised to protect her.”
“Then do it.”
“I am!”
Summer, Luther, and Faith turned their heads toward us as my voice carried. Summer frowned and began to get up. Luther murmured something and pulled her back down. That she let him was quite a surprise. I wasn’t sure what there was between the boy and the fairy, but they had connected the first time they’d met. Kind of like the baby and the fairy. I wondered if Summer was using magic.
I lowered my voice. “I have to find that skinwalker, Jimmy. Ruthie said Faith would be safe with you. You think I’d ask this of you if I had any other choice?”
His dark eyes stared into mine. He was so damn beautiful. My gaze lowered to his mouth. He could do amazing things with that mouth. Once Sanducci and I had spent hours just kissing. I missed that.
Our breath became shallow. His gaze lowered as well. He took a step forward, and I stopped breathing altogether.
But he caught himself before we could touch, backed up, and lifted his face to the sun. “I wish things could be the way they were,” he murmured. “I want to forget, Lizzy, but I can’t. Every time I look at you I see what hides beneath that collar.”
My demon. He hated it. And since that demon resided in me . . . well, you do the math.
“I don’t know what you want from me, Sanducci. You’re pissed because I love Sawyer, but you don’t want me to love you, either.”
“I didn’t say that.” His lips twisted. “I want you to love me; I just don’t know if I can love you back.”
“Bite me,” I muttered.
He turned away, but not before I saw the haunted expression on his face. “Already did.”
There wasn’t much I could say to that. He’d bitten me; I’d bitten him. We’d both become vampires, and there was no going back.
“Hold on.” I reached out and grabbed his arm, got a jolt as soon as I did.
Images washed over me—of us as kids, teens, young adults, in bed, out of bed, under the bed. I caught a hint of our dreams—the home, the family—those things we’d never had and now, never would.
Those thoughts were replaced by the memory of me as a vampire—lying to Jimmy, seducing him, and worse. I yanked my hand free and rubbed it on my jeans.
He was right. I didn’t know if we could ever get past that. Our love was all tangled up with the guilt, the lust with the blood, the hope with the hatred, the dreams with the fear.
I stuck my hands in my pockets so I wouldn’t be tempted to touch him again. “Will you keep Faith safe?”
“Sounds like the title of a Sunday serm
on.”
“Jimmy.” He was avoiding an answer as well as my gaze.
“I’m no good with kids, Lizzy.”
“She’s not a kid.”
“I’m no good with baby shape-shifters, either.”
“What’s up with you?” I asked softly. “I’ve asked you for worse things, Jimmy, than watching over a kitten-kid.”
“And I gave you every one.”
Something in his voice made me swallow hard against a sudden thickness in my throat. When I had myself under control, I murmured, “What’s one more?”
CHAPTER 13
“Hasn’t he done enough?”
Summer had left Luther and Faith behind and fluttered over to horn in on our conversation.
“Yes,” I said.
She’d opened her mouth to argue, but when I agreed, she shut it again. Summer had no more idea how to handle me when I was being pleasant than I’d know how to handle her if she were.
“But I still need his help and I have to leave, preferably today.”
“He wants to keep you from leaving”—she shot Jimmy a disgusted glare—“by giving you a hard time about babysitting. Try to keep up.”
Well, duh. That made sense.
“So have a nice trip,” Summer said. “Try not to die.”
“I never knew you cared.”
“I don’t. Problem is, you die and we’ve got Doomsday—new leader of the darkness, death, destruction, crack in hell’s doorway, and so on. I’m bored.”
“Yeah, it does get old. I’ll try not to get killed and ruin your life. Getting back to the baby . . .”
“I’ll watch her.”
Actually, that worked. Summer might look like a petite, blond rodeo groupie, but she was dangerous. She also had a virtual fortress in New Mexico.
“You’ll bring her to your cottage?” I asked.
“Of course.”
“And Luther?”
“Wouldn’t leave without him.”
“What about—?”
We both turned to Jimmy. He stared back at us with no expression.
“I could knock him over the head and take him, too,” Summer mused.
Yeah, that oughta work.
“Got any gold chains?” I asked.
“Not on me.”
“I have some in the trunk of the car that you can borrow.”
“Good ones?”
“Worked on me.”
“That’ll do.”
Jimmy lifted his eyebrows. “You through?”
“You going back to New Mexico with Summer the easy way or the hard way?”
Now his eyebrows shot downward, and his fingers curled into his palms. “I’d like to see you try it.”
“I’d like to see me try it, too.” I took a step forward, spoiling for a fight. Sometimes that was the only way to feel human these days.
But Jimmy shook out the tension in his hands and held one up. “There are a lot of people—or un-people,” he conceded when I took a breath to correct him, “that are after this child and we don’t know why.”
“Do we know who?” Summer cast a glance at Luther and the kitten, but they lay on a small patch of grass watching the clouds drift by and paying no attention to us, or at least pretending not to.
“Not really,” Jimmy answered, then explained all that had happened at the motel.
“Why send humans?” Summer asked.
“That appears to be the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question,” I murmured.
“No,” Summer said slowly. “It’s pretty clever. You didn’t get a read on them. No whisper from Ruthie. No buzz. Because they’re human.” Her perfect pink lips tightened. “Brilliant.”
“Except most humans would be hamburger if they tried it.”
“If they were unprepared, as most humans are. But these weren’t,” Summer said. “We’re going to have to stay on our toes. This could be the new norm.”
“Hiring human hit men?”
“I bet they do it again.”
“Frick,” I muttered.
Summer laughed. “Frick? Since when do you watch your language?”
“Since—” I jerked a thumb at the kids.
“Oh.”
“I—uh—better go.” All of a sudden I didn’t want to, and I wasn’t sure why. Summer drove me insane; Jimmy wasn’t much better. The baby, cute as she was, made me nervous. The only one I could stomach lately was Luther, and I had to leave him behind.
I headed for the Impala. Luther hailed me before I got there, and I made a detour over the crunchy August grass toward him and Faith.
Luther stood. “They gonna watch her?”
“Summer is.” Luther nodded, as if he’d expected nothing else, then headed for the Impala.
“Whoa, big guy.” I put a hand on his arm, got a flash of lions roaring, teeth and claws flailing, blood flying, before I yanked away.
I needed to do a better job of shielding myself or I was going to blow a blood vessel one of these days. I used to be much better at it, but my mind was so full of . . . everything else, sometimes I lost my focus.
“You can’t go,” I finished.
“Like hell.” Luther started for the car again.
“I’m serious.”
He didn’t stop. “Me too.”
Faith began to bound after him, and I snatched her right out of the air with both hands. She hissed, but when I snapped, “Knock that off,” she did.
I tucked the kitten under my arm like a football and went after Luther. I caught him as he opened the passenger door and slapped my palm against it to keep it closed. “No,” I said. “I have to go alone.”
“Every Nephilim on earth is gunning for you.”
“They have been for a while now.”
“I can’t let you leave without me.” His kinky long hair fell over his face. “We’re partners. How will you know what’s coming at you and when?”
I took a breath, glanced up at the bright blue sky, then let it out. “I’ll manage.” Although I wasn’t sure how. “Besides, the new SOP appears to be sending well-informed humans. You won’t feel them coming, either.”
“Two is always better than one,” he insisted, then more quietly, “You wouldn’t let me go off alone.”
“I’m not sixteen.”
That brought his head up. His hair flew back. His eyes flared amber. “Neither am I.”
My head gave a low, painful thump. I was so not having this argument again. A distraction was in order.
I glanced over my shoulder conspiratorially. Jimmy was watching us, no expression on his face, but Summer was occupied digging through the rear end of the Hummer, probably searching for something that might kill me.
I turned back, lowered my voice. “I need someone I can trust, Luther.”
As his eyes widened, they slowly returned to hazel. “For what?”
“You know I can’t take Faith with me.”
His head tilted as he studied my face. “What are you planning on doing up there?”
I couldn’t help it. I glanced again at Jimmy, who lifted his eyebrows as if he’d heard. Though Luther and I had been speaking in a whisper, maybe he had. Sanducci’s ears were as supersonic as his eyes.
“Whatever I have to,” I answered, holding Jimmy’s gaze.
He knew what I’d done to raise the last ghost. Or should I say who? He also knew I might have to do the same thing again. No doubt another reason he’d been trying to stop me.
Thus far I’d only slept with two men for power. But sooner or later I’d need something that only a stranger could give. I wasn’t looking forward to it.
I forced myself to turn away from Sanducci and face Luther again. From the way the kid’s cheeks had darkened, he knew exactly what I’d meant. Good. I didn’t want to explain. Especially not to him.
“Ruthie thinks Faith would be safer with Jimmy,” I continued, “but he’s being . . .” I lifted one shoulder then lowered it. “Jimmy. And Summer—”
“Doesn’t like you.”
“Can’t say I blame her.” The feeling was oh, so mutual. “I doubt she’d hurt a baby, but—”
“You didn’t expect her to sell her soul to Satan in exchange for Sanducci’s life, either.”
“Right. If you’re there, I can do what I need to without worrying, and the quicker I go, the quicker I’ll get back. If we’re lucky I’ll find out from Sawyer not only who’s after Faith and why, but also who took the Key of Solomon.”
Luther nodded and stepped away from the car. “You can count on me,” he said.
I could. I trusted this kid as much as I’d once trusted Jimmy. As much as I’d still trust Jimmy—if he hadn’t gone soft on soul-selling fairies.
Luther held out his arms for Faith, and as I began to hand her over, there was a bright flash, and she was a baby again. I nearly dropped her at the unexpected increase in weight and wiggliness.
Luther snatched the child, and Faith giggled. “She’s messing with you,” he said.
I couldn’t help but smile. If I’d been a shape-shifting infant, I’d probably have messed with everyone, too. I wouldn’t have been able to help myself. Faith was growing on me—in both forms.
I headed around the rear of the Impala—a long trip, the car was a real beast—but I was distracted by outrageous kissy noises. Turning, I discovered Faith smooching out her lips and holding out her arms.
“Where did she get that?” I asked.
“Beats me.”
I studied the child for several seconds. “Have you noticed she’s maturing at the speed of . . .”
“What?” Luther asked.
“Not human, that’s for sure.”
“She isn’t.”
“I think you need to write down what she does differently every day. Weigh her, measure her. See how fast she’s growing.”
“What for?”
“I don’t know.” It wasn’t as if I was going to be able to do anything to stop Faith from becoming whatever it is she was.
“You better give her a kiss before she flips out,” Luther warned.
Faith had continued to make smoochy sounds, and the longer I ignored them, the louder and more insistent they’d become.
I wasn’t wild about kissing the kid. Her entire chin shone with spittle, and there was something that looked like dog-do on her knees. Her chubby hands were gray with dust; she had grass in her teeth. But really, what choice did I have?
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