Any Given Doomsday (The Phoenix Chronicles)

by Lori Handeland

  The headlights of the Hummer still shone on us like spotlights, but the man’s eyes were as flat as the cougar’s had been both before and after it died.

  Springboard lifted his gun and pointed it at my head.

  Chapter 11

  I didn’t have time to duck. Even if 1 had, I doubted I was faster than a speeding bullet. Jimmy, however, was.

  He tackled Springboard, knocking the weapon aside just as it went off, then driving the much larger man to the ground. Springboard’s gun flew right, Jimmy’s flew left as they proceeded to beat the crap out of each other.

  I might be new at the seer game, but I could fit the pieces together. Springboard had tried to shoot me; therefore he was the one I was going to shoot.

  I snatched up the nearest weapon. Unfortunately, Jimmy and Springboard were rolling over and over in the dirt.

  Jimmy had grown up fighting; Springboard appeared to have done the same. Though Jimmy possessed superior speed and strength, Springboard wasn’t exactly a tortoise, and his biceps bulged inside the silky material of his shirt. I wondered idly what kind of breed he was.

  For several minutes, neither one of them had the upper hand, and I couldn’t get off a shot with them so thoroughly intertwined. Then Jimmy got sick of playing around—he always did—and rammed his elbow into Springboard’s nose. There was a sharp crack, a yowl, then a whole lot of blood. The two of them separated, and I cocked the gun.

  “Don’t, Lizzy!” Jimmy whirled. “The chindi’s possessed him. If you kill the body, the demon will hop to someone else. We have to—”

  Springboard grabbed Jimmy around the knees and yanked. Jimmy went down fast and hard. He caught himself with his hands but his head still bopped against the dirt, and he lay still.

  Springboard, or what had once been Springboard, lifted his gaze to mine. His eyes reminded me of those in stuffed deer, teddy bears, creepy little dolls—no expression, no life, no damn reflection.

  He climbed to his feet, blood still flowing down his face and darkening the once fashionable pale orange dress shirt. He walked right over Jimmy as if he weren’t even there, his flat zombielike gaze on me.

  My fingers tightened, but I didn’t dare shoot. I didn’t want that demon in me; I didn’t want it in Jimmy either. But would I be able to keep myself from using the gun once he started to kill me?

  I threw the weapon aside. That should help.

  Springboard kept coming; I kept backing away. He reached for me with longer arms than I’d expected, nearly caught me too, then my stocking-covered heel came down on a stone. I winced, recoiled, and tripped over a much larger one, landing with a brain-jarring thud on my rear end.

  I braced for his weight. Instead, he started to shriek. Light poured from his eyes, ears, and mouth, as if he were a jack-o’-lantern with a flashlight inside.

  I sat up, and his arms flew out, his back bowed, and the sheen increased, flowing up and out of him like lightning. The scream no longer seemed to come from Springboard, but from the pillar of light that rose into the night.

  As suddenly as it had started, the screeching stopped, and the light went out. Springboard collapsed, thankfully not on me, and lay still.

  I crawled the few inches between us and checked for a pulse; he didn’t have one.

  Jimmy moaned, and I scrambled toward him as he rolled onto his back. The bump on his head was huge, but as I watched it seemed to get smaller, the scrape from the gravel and dirt fading.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  I glanced at Springboard. “I’m not sure.”

  He followed my gaze and cursed again. “I told you not to kill him.” He grabbed my chin, tilted my face this way and that, staring into my eyes by the light of the Hummer, then frowning. “It didn’t leap to you.”

  “No. It went—” I pointed skyward with one finger.

  “How?”

  “You tell me.”

  He lifted a hand to his forehead, encountered the bump, winced, and lowered it again. “A chindi is a demon that possesses animals. It’s often sent for purposes of vengeance.”

  “On me?”

  “Hard to say. I’m not sure how much control the sender has over the demon. Usually a chindi just kills everything in the vicinity.”

  “How did whoever sent that…”—I waved my hand at the bodies of Springboard and the cougar—”know where we were?”

  He shook his head, then groaned and rested his cheek on his knees. “No one knew about this place but me and you.”

  “You’re forgetting Springboard.”

  “He didn’t know until I brought him here.”

  “Well, I certainly didn’t tell anyone.” I couldn’t have.

  I’d been locked in the freaking tack room, but we’d get to that later. “Why don’t you tell me what you know about chindis?”

  I half expected him to blow off my question. But he answered in a voice that reminded me of my sophomore biology teacher, Mr. Desre, who’d spent the year reading to us from the textbook instead of making learning fun.

  “A chindi can’t be killed with the usual weapons. The body it’s inhabiting will die, and the demon will jump to another.”

  “You seem to know a lot about them.”

  “I’ve seen one before.”

  “And how did you kill it?”

  “1 didn’t. I returned the chindi to the one who sent it by reciting a prayer of protection inside a charmed circle.” His lips tightened as he stared at Springboard. “You’d better tell me exactly what happened.”

  “He tried to grab me; I fell and he started screaming, then light shot out of his eyeholes and—” I waved a hand at the body.

  “No chant of protection?”

  “As if I’d know one.”

  “Any prayer will do.”

  “Thanks for the tip. It would have been helpful before I accidentally killed him.”

  “Did he touch you?”

  “No.”

  He leaned his head on his knees again. “There was something about killing a chindi. It’s been so long since I saw one. Let me think a minute.”

  Whenever I tried to remember something, silence was best. So I sat in the dirt next to a dead man and a dead cougar and waited for Jimmy to—

  His head came up; his eyes had sharpened to dark pools of onyx. He reached across the space separating us with that queer flash of speed and yanked my blouse open. The few buttons I hadn’t already lost popped, striking the ground with dull thuds.

  “Hey!” I smacked his hands away; my fingers curled into fists. “You are so asking for an ass-kicking.”

  He ignored me, his gaze focused on my chest.

  “To kill a chindi,” he said, “all you have to do is lay turquoise in its path.’“

  The stone, which lay above my heart, seemed to burn into my skin.

  Jimmy reached out and lifted it, his fingertips brushing my breasts, lingering longer than they needed to. “Turquoise in the path. Coincidence?” His eyes met mine. “I don’t think so.”

  “I don’t know anything about chindis, and I’ve been wearing this since—” I broke off.

  “He gave this to you.”

  Not a question, so I didn’t answer. Jimmy knew damn well he had given it to me. He had to have seen it when he’d been touching and kissing and suckling me not very long ago. Maybe he hadn’t really registered it being there because he was as used to seeing the turquoise nestled between my breasts as I was.

  “What difference does it make where I got it, we’re just lucky I had it.”

  “Luck is overrated.” He let the stone fall back where it belonged.

  The tiny blue-green pebble brushed against my skin like a chill wind, and I shivered. For just an instant I could have sworn I’d felt… him.

  There’d been other times in my life when it had seemed like I was being watched. Times I’d woken up sweating and frightened and sensed I wasn’t alone. But I always was.

  Jimmy got to his feet and offered me a hand. I took it, but
as soon as I was vertical, I let him go.

  “What exactly are you saying?” I asked.

  He stared at the sparkling sky. Out here, away from the city, the stars were so bright they twinkled. The moon spilled down, spreading a milky sheen over the abandoned farm, intensifying every color—the bright red barn against the May-green grass, surrounded by the blue-black sky. The picture it made would look great on a postcard. We could start a whole new tourism campaign: discover the DEMONS OF DAIRYLAND.

  I rubbed between my eyes. Maybe I had left the hospital too early.

  “What I’m saying,” Jimmy answered, “is that I find it a little far-fetched that someone sent a chindi. A creature that is virtually indestructible, unless a hunk of turquoise, which you conveniently wear around your neck, is cast in its path.”

  “Only you and I know about this.” I frowned, fingering the necklace. “Well, Ruthie, too, but I don’t think she’s chatting with anyone else these days.”

  “You’re forgetting someone.”

  “No I’m not,” I said mulishly.

  Jimmy sighed and switched his gaze from the stars to me. “There’s one more thing you should know about the chindi.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a Navajo spirit.”

  “Shit.”

  Jimmy lifted his face to the sky again as he stuck his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “Yep.”

  Chapter 12

  “Why would he—” I stopped. Why did Sawyer do anything?

  “Relax,” Jimmy said. “He didn’t mean to kill you.”

  “How you figure?”

  His gaze lowered to the turquoise, which lay like the stone it was against my chest. “How many people have turquoise on them? Especially around here.”

  “Huh?”

  My mind still wasn’t functioning as well as it should. I blamed the walking cougar and the possessed dead man.

  “Sawyer knew the demon couldn’t hurt you while you wore his gift,” Jimmy said.

  “Sure would have been nice if I’d known it.” I rubbed my arms, chilled despite the warm-for-the-month-of-May evening breeze.

  Sometimes I wondered why I still wore the stone. In the beginning, the turquoise was the only jewelry I owned, and it was beautiful, a stark statement of brilliant color in a world where there was so much gray. There was also the added incentive that it drove Jimmy bonkers, which was always fun. In the end I didn’t feel dressed without it. If I were honest, I didn’t feel safe.

  I glanced at the cougar. Had this been why?

  “He couldn’t have known I’d still be wearing it,” I murmured.

  “I bet he did know just that.”

  “But—”

  “He wouldn’t kill you, Lizzy.” Jimmy’s lips twisted. “Me? That’s another story.” He strode toward the barn.

  “Wait!” I hurried after him, grabbing his arm.

  “Let’s clean this place up and get on the road.”

  “To where?”

  “You know where.”

  “No.” He shook me off and continued on his way. “I’m not going, Sanducci, and you can’t make me.”

  He spun around so fast I took a step back. “I can make you, Lizzy, and I will. We’ve got no choice.”

  “There’s always a choice.”

  “Not in this.”

  I stood in the barnyard as he disappeared inside, considered hopping into his Hummer and leaving him here. But then what?

  I’d have to hide. Forever. I wasn’t up to that.

  Instead, I followed, determined to convince Jimmy that his plan sucked.

  The tack room was trashed—the mattress shredded by razor-sharp cat claws, stuffing trailed everywhere. The bedframe lay cockeyed, one corner still against the wall, another against the floor, the third and fourth waving back and forth like an overgrown, rusted teeter-totter.

  As I came through the door, Jimmy snapped his cell phone shut, tossed it into a bag with one hand and removed a T-shirt with the other. “Put this on.” He flipped the garment in my direction. “Your blouse is toast.”

  “Whose fault is that?” I retorted.

  “I just gave you a new one. Quit bitching.”

  I lifted the T-shirt. “Van Halen?”

  He shrugged as if to say, You know how it goes.

  I did.

  Jimmy had been gifted with all sorts of T-shirts. He wore them with jeans and a sport coat, had been photographed himself wearing them in London, Paris, Rome. What began as a joke became a trademark. If Sanducci wore your T-shirt, he’d deigned to take your picture. You had arrived.

  I thought back to the photo he’d taken of Van Halen—Eddie and Alex, Michael, Sammy and David Lee. How he’d gotten them all in the same room was anyone’s guess. How he’d gotten them to pose and not kill one another was a downright miracle. The portrait had graced their latest All-rime Hits CD. The thing had sold three million copies. I had one myself.

  Jimmy headed back outside. I hurriedly shoved my dusty stocking-covered feet into my shoes, then lost the buttonless blouse and drew the T-shirt over my head. It smelled like him, and I was struck by a wave of nostalgia so deep I staggered. Would I ever get past loving Jimmy Sanducci? God, I hoped so.

  When I stepped from the barn, Jimmy was kneeling next to Springboard and shoving something into the dead man’s pocket.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Wrapping things up neatly for your cop friends.”

  “Huh?”

  He sighed and withdrew the item from Springboard’s pocket.

  “Ruthie’s crucifix? How did you get that? She never—” I paused.

  She’d never taken it off while she was alive.

  “You came back?” I asked.

  He bent once more to plant the necklace on Springboard. “I was too late for her, but I knew she’d want you to have this—” He straightened, his eyes meeting mine, the grief there an echo of my own. “I took it, then I tried to wake you up, but the sirens…”

  “You ran.”

  “Like a rabbit.”

  “How could the Nephilim have hurt her if she was wearing a crucifix?”

  Sadness spread over his face, settling in his eyes. “Only a few beings will be stopped by a crucifix.”

  “How can you touch it?”

  “I’m not one of them.”

  “But—”

  “I’m dhampir, not vampire. There’s a difference.”

  “So you say.”

  “I didn’t burst into flames, did I?”

  He was so cavalier I had to ask. “Does a crucifix really destroy a vampire?”

  Jimmy gave me a look that made something in my chest shift—like I was a prize student and he was a lifetime teacher. “Very good. We’ll make a seer out of you yet.” I half expected him to pat me on the head. “Always doubt the so-called legends. Not doing so will get people killed.”

  “You didn’t answer the question.”

  “Any blessed item will repel a vampire. But…” He shook his head. “It takes a lot more than that to kill a demon of such power.”

  “What about sunlight?”

  “That will kill some. Depends on the type.”

  I blinked. “There are types?”

  “Of course. The bruxa, from Portugal, can only be killed by use of a magical amulet. The liderc, from Hungary, must eat garlic—and good luck getting them to do that. The vjesci, from Poland, must be buried in sand.”

  “This is too complicated.”

  “You’ll get used to it.”

  I doubted that.

  “As soon as the case is closed,” Jimmy continued, “and 1 bet it won’t be long now, the police will give you Ruthie’s necklace back.”

  “They didn’t tell me her necklace was missing.” They had to have known. Everyone knew Ruthie wore that crucifix every minute, every day.

  The light dawned. “They withheld the information. Only the killer would—”

  “Let’s go.” Jimmy walked away from Sp
ringboard without a backward glance.

  He climbed into the driver’s seat and started the engine. I had no choice but to get in.

  “You’re setting him up.”

  “I need to be out from under the cops.” Jimmy put the car in drive. “If they think Springboard killed Ruthie, I will be.”

  “You think that just finding her crucifix in his pocket will convict him?”

  “Since he’s not around to argue, I hope so.”

  I glanced over my shoulder as Springboard’s body and that of the cougar’s became smaller and smaller in the rear window, then faded into the shadows altogether.

  The crucifix might be enough to close the case, though I didn’t think it would be enough to get Hammond and Landsdown completely off Jimmy’s back. Still, I doubted they’d track him to New Mexico if they had another suspect tied up neatly with a bow. Their superiors wouldn’t let them.

  We reached the end of the long dirt drive and turned onto the two-lane highway that would return us to the freeway. From there we could go just about anywhere. Unfortunately we were going to New Mexico. I was still trying to figure out how to avoid that.

  “You said the DKs are breeds.” Jimmy nodded. “What was Springboard?”

  “The way this is supposed to work is that you tell me what kind of beast lies behind the human face, not the other way around.”

  “Well, excuse me for screwing up the way things are supposed to be. But I’m a little seer come lately, so why don’t you just tell me what Springboard was?”

  “Hyena,” he snapped. “About an eighth.”

  “He was one-eighth hyena,” Laughter bubbled, and I swallowed hard to make it go away.

  Jimmy cast a quick glance in my direction, then returned it to the road and continued to speak. ‘“Bouda was once a country in Africa—maybe it still is, 1 don’t know—which was governed by a matriarchal society of witches who could shift into hyenas.”

  “Nephilim.”

  “Yes. Eventually the shifters themselves became known as the bouda.”

  “So Springboard could become a hyena under the light of the silvery moon?”

  “Boudas can shift any time they want to; they aren’t bound by the moon. And Springboard wasn’t a full-fledged bouda, but a breed, several times removed.”