Any Given Doomsday (The Phoenix Chronicles)

by Lori Handeland

  “Sex for most people is about love—” He snorted. “At the least about pleasure, fun, a connection. This has to take a toll on you.”

  He laughed. “It’s not such a hardship. I am what I am.”

  “But—”

  “I’d have fucked you anyway. It’s what I’ve wanted since the first time I saw you.”

  I took a step back, and his smile was all teeth, his eyes all beast.

  “I was fifteen,” I pointed out, “and you were, what? Three hundred and fifteen?”

  He got to his feet. “You think that matters to a man like me?”

  It must have, because despite my being here that summer, just the two of us, he’d never touched me like that. Except in my dreams.

  Sawyer’s fingers closed around my upper arms. “Don’t expect me to be a hero; I’m not capable of it.”

  “I think you’re capable of a lot more than you let on.”

  To prove his point, or perhaps mine, his mouth swooped down. I didn’t try to get away. I doubt I could have, even if I’d wanted to.

  His kiss was rough, punishing—him or me? I didn’t know. I didn’t care. Our teeth clicked; he nipped my lip and I tasted blood. His tongue laved it away.

  I opened to him, relishing the violence. It called to me. When he kissed me, I saw worlds, centuries, all that he’d done, everything he knew and everyone. I wanted to lap up the knowledge like a tiger at a jungle river, like a wolf at a mountain lake, like everything he was and everything I could be.

  He broke away, staring into my face. “Did you see anything? Hear anyone?”

  I scowled. He’d kissed me to jump-start a vision? I wanted to kick him, but that never worked out as well as I hoped.

  “No.” I shifted in his amis. “Let me go.”

  He didn’t, and I considered kicking him again. My fingers brushed his shoulder where the shark lived and for an instant I felt the water, cool and sweet, all around me. I wanted to dive deeper where the darkness lived, chase things and make them bleed.

  I yanked my hand away. He still didn’t release me.

  “Will I have to touch a tattoo every time I want to shape-shift?”

  Not that I wanted to shape-shift, but I was pretty certain I was going to have to. Eventually.

  “Either that or get some of your own.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Since I have to touch them, and you’ve absorbed my powers, it would follow that you’d have to.”

  The idea of marking my skin as he’d marked his chilled me. But I was starting to understand that what I wanted and needed didn’t matter, because if I didn’t do whatever I had to I wasn’t going to have a world for my wants and needs to exist in.

  God, this sucked.

  Sawyer released me as suddenly as he’d grabbed me, then knelt. I tensed, half expecting him to press his face to my stomach, or perhaps lower. My body responded, going moist at the thought. But he only caught the edge of the sheepskin and began to rewrap it.

  I knelt too, then placed my hands over his. He paused, staring at them. My skin was lighter, but not by much. For some reason our hands looked right like that. A man’s hands and a woman’s, the way it should be, the way it was meant to be.

  In the beginning.

  Chapter 28

  For a second I thought he meant to say something, but he never did. Instead, he pulled his hands from mine as he lifted the sheepskin and went into the hogan.

  He returned moments later, dressed and packed, then disappeared into the pine trees without even glancing in my direction. What the hell did I do?

  I suspected that my trying to talk to him as if he were a person, to understand him, to sympathize, had freaked him out. I doubted anyone had ever bothered before.

  The trek down wasn’t any easier than the trek up had been. In areas the terrain was so steep, I slid forward, bumping into Sawyer, who never seemed to slip. He didn’t pause, didn’t help, wouldn’t talk.

  Near dusk we reached his place. Sawyer walked straight into the hogan. He didn’t come back out.

  I went into the house and took a shower until the water ran cold. By then, twilight reigned. Standing in the doorway, I watched the stars arrive. In the distance, coyotes howled. I assumed they were real coyotes, but I couldn’t be sure. Unless I touched them.

  I cocked my head. Something tickled my brain. The snake had said I must do whatever it took to become who I needed to be. Sex with Sawyer had given me his power of shape-shifting, but I was certain he had others. Maybe I’d have to take them.

  By taking him.

  I lowered my gaze from the stars to the earth, and there he was, standing at the edge of the trees, naked in the night. Had he been running across the mountain as a wolf, a mountain lion, a tiger? The idea was both frightening and arousing, the depths of his power, the possibilities of it, enticing.

  He continued to watch me without moving, as if his stillness would keep me from seeing him. He had to know better. I could not only see him, but hear him, smell him.

  The snake had also said there’d be choices, so I made one. When he didn’t come to me, I went to him.

  The first time had been out of my control. I hadn’t known then that the sex was real. I knew now. I chose it; I chose him. There was no going back, no denying it.

  Hell, there was no stopping it—or me.

  I took his hand. His skin was scalding. I wanted to feel that heat inside of me. I wanted to drown in his scent. Taste of his flesh.

  His light eyes glowed moon silver as he lifted his other hand and touched my hair. It was a gesture so unlike him, I blinked.

  His arm dropped to his side. His expression remained stoic. I wanted to bring joy to his face, at the least make him lose control just once.

  I reached for the hem of my T-shirt, then tossed it aside along with my panties to stand naked beneath the moon. The chill night made my nipples harden. My skin pebbled with gooseflesh.

  As if he couldn’t help himself, he cupped a breast, his fingers dark against my moon-shrouded skin. I let my head fall back, baring my neck, the ultimate sign of trust. His breath caught. I waited for the exhale and when it didn’t come, slowly I raised my face so I could see his.

  He held my breast like an offering to the god of the moon, his thumb poised over the nipple as if he fought his own desires as well as my own.

  I arched into him; my breath caught as thumb and nipple collided, and the curve of my breast filled his palm.

  Still he hesitated, even though I could feel his erection warm against my skin. I imagined sliding to my knees, licking him as I went. He’d taste like sun and wind, salt and water, like man and more. I had to have him for no other reason than that.

  “Please.”

  My voice was hoarse. Probably from the unlikely bend in my neck, which 1 again offered to both Sawyer and the moon. I began to lift my head, intent on doing what I’d just imagined—going down on him until he was the one saying please. But he stayed me with one sweep of his thumb over my nipple, one squeeze of my breast and the harsh, foreign-sounding expletive that was muffled against my neck when his mouth pressed to the curve.

  His teeth worried a bit of skin, the sharpness of the bite igniting me further. My hands grasped his shoulders as he made his way to my breast, caressing, kissing, licking until I thought I might explode if he didn’t—

  Suddenly he swung me off the ground. I gasped at the sensation. 1 wasn’t small; he wasn’t large. But he was strong. I’d known that even before he strode across the yard, kicked back the half-open door of the house, and laid me on the bed far more gently than I’d expected.

  What I’d expected was for him to do me in the yard, on the ground, against the wall of the house. Or, once inside, to toss me oil the mattress, thrusting into me as he followed me down. The sex would be rough and fast, but fantastic.

  Instead, he stared at me as the moon streamed through the window, casting him in ebony shadow. I couldn’t see his face; I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

>   “Sawyer?” I held out my hand.

  The gesture broke whatever hesitation he’d had. I could have sworn I heard him curse again, but he joined me on the bed, covering my body with his.

  However, he didn’t take me as I wanted him to, filling my eternal emptiness to bursting, opening my body, mind, and soul. Instead, he kissed me for hours it seemed, refusing to finish what I’d started no matter how much I begged.

  I’d never been so aroused, so on the edge but unable to fall just from the touch of a man’s mouth on mine. I wondered if he’d been in the desert making magic beneath the moon, casting a spell over this house, over him and me, over us.

  He lifted his head. The slight light of the moon glinted in his eyes, sparkled off his moistened lips, leached the color from his face so he seemed poised like a sepia photograph, something out of the distant past, frozen in time, surreal despite the burning heat of his body. Then he closed his eyes, shutting me out even as he joined us together.

  The orgasm was immediate and intense; I cried out. Not his name, I wasn’t that far gone, but a sound both shocked and satisfied, pure woman touched by man in the darkest part of herself.

  Out there something answered. Something wild and free. Something other. And Sawyer lifted his head and cried out too, as he spilled himself into me again and again and again.

  I was still shuddering with reaction, still hot both inside and out, when he rolled free, got up and walked away. I was so surprised, I didn’t follow at first. Had I really expected him to cuddle?

  He wasn’t the type. However, pretending for a few minutes was usually considered mandatory. Not that Sawyer had ever cared about rules or common decency.

  Annoyed now, I jumped up and went to the door, but he was gone.

  I crossed to the hogan, yanked back the woven mat, and stared at the empty room as a long, low, lonely howl rose from the mountain.

  I expected a visit from Ruthie but none came. Maybe because I had such a hard time falling asleep. Without sleep, there are no dreams and so far without dreams there’d been no Ruthie.

  I kept listening for Sawyer, drifting off, jerking awake at every brush of the wind, every chitter of a squirrel, each creak of the house or a tree. When dawn arrived I was more exhausted than I’d been the night before, and no further along in my quest for a vision.

  I was a failure at this seer gig. Not that I’d wanted it in the first place, but since I appeared to be stuck it would certainly be nice not to be the worst seer in the history of the world.

  “Come on,” I muttered. “Let me have it. I’m ready and I’m willing.” But was I able?

  I sat up, and the room flickered. Dizziness hit me so hard I wanted to retch. I closed my eyes and—bam—I saw a man.

  Or maybe man wasn’t quite the right word.

  Strega, Ruthie whispered.

  I could see his face—handsome enough, but thin, the bones of his cheeks and nose prominent, the olive-toned skin stretched tightly so he had few wrinkles, yet his seemingly bottomless onyx eyes were ancient.

  His hair spilled back from his forehead and down to his shoulders, ebony waves that reflected golden nickers of candlelight. Wisps of smoke trailed here and there before vanishing on the currents of air.

  He passed his hands, long-fingered and supple, familiar somehow, over a bowl of liquid on the table in front of him. His lips moved in the rhythm of a chant, though no sound reached me. The liquid rippled—dark and ruby red in the half-light. It looked suspiciously like—

  “Blood.”

  He glanced up at the word, cocked his head. Had he heard me?

  My heart thundered at the idea of this… Strega— whatever that was—seeing me as I saw him. He seemed to be casting a spell, which made him some kind of witch. I’d find out just what kind when the vision ended.

  I tried to see everything the vision afforded me. He wore a business suit—black, with an equally black shirt and tie. The effect should have been funereal, but was instead elegant. Probably because of the strong, straight line of his body, the sense that beneath the clothes someone— something—powerful lurked. He appeared both ancient and modern—the candlelight and bowl of blood in contrast to the fashionable suit and silk tie.

  The room was modern too, the decor slick chrome and glass. Some kind of office, since I could see a desk with neat stacks of papers and a telephone; the table he stood at was long with chairs positioned every few feet.

  Suddenly the Strega dropped his hands and moved toward the curtains, yanking them aside. Sunlight spilled in through the wall of windows beyond which a booming metropolis loomed.

  I knew this place. I’d seen it on the television for days on end one September in 2001. From this window I could see the hole in the buildings where the towers had tumbled down. And if that wasn’t a big enough hint, the Empire State Building rose up just to the right on the opposite side of the street.

  The Strega was in New York City, and so was Jimmy.

  Chapter 29

  I came out of the vision with a jerk, tumbling from the edge of the bed and barely catching myself before my face slammed into the floor. Then I lay there, trembling with reaction. Visions kind of sucked.

  I managed to get up. I had no time to waste. I needed to call Jimmy. Except my cell phone didn’t have a battery.

  I threw on whatever clothes were handy and headed out the door. I ran right into Sawyer.

  “I need my phone battery. Now.”

  His gaze sharpened. “You had a vision. What did you see?”

  “Strega.”

  “Witch,” he murmured.

  “Yeah,” I agreed. “The spell he was casting kind of gave it away.”

  “Spell?”

  “Bowl of blood, a lot of hand-waving, a chant I couldn’t hear.” Sawyer frowned. “You know what that means?”

  “No, but I’ve never known a bowl of blood to be a good thing.”

  Sawyer left the room, returning quickly with a book so old the paper looked like parchment, the writing on the cover faded and spidery. Trust him not to have an Internet connection for research. No, he had to have a book that appeared as old as his soul, written with a quill.

  He opened it, thumbed through, then met my gaze. “This is the being responsible for killing Ruthie and all the others.”

  I started and reached for the book. “How do you know that?”

  “A Strega is not only a medieval Italian witch but a vampire, one with the power to control animals. So if he didn’t kill her outright—”

  “He sent those things to do it for him.”

  All the pieces were falling into place. We’d already established that whoever had set the chaos of doomsday in motion had to have more power than most Nephilim. A witch from medieval Italy certainly fit the bill.

  I skimmed the text, frowned and glanced up. “I don’t see any way to kill it.”

  “Maybe there isn’t one.”

  My heart lurched. “That’s impossible.”

  “Is it?”

  “I’ve got to call Jimmy.”

  Sawyer tossed me my cell phone battery. I snapped it in, pleased to discover I had service, then punched buttons until I found Jimmy’s number. I got voice mail.

  “It’s me,” I said. “Liz. Call me right away.”

  I disconnected, frowning. “The phone didn’t even ring.”

  “You’ll have to explain why that makes you frown. I’ve never owned one of those things.”

  “What?” I glanced up. “Oh. The phone goes to the message service without a ring if it’s turned off, or out of juice—”

  “Or at the bottom of the ocean along with its owner?”

  “Why would you say that?”

  “Wishful thinking?”

  “1 gotta get to New York.”

  Sawyer caught my arm as I tried to rush by. “Don’t you find it interesting that the one you’re seeking is a vampire?”

  “Lately, isn’t everyone?”

  His ringers tightened. “Listen to me.” H
is voice was a growl; his eyes flickered to beast and back again. “A dhampir is the son of a vampire.”

  An icy finger trailed down my spine. “Coincidence.”

  “Is it?”

  “Jimmy’s on our side. Even you said so.”

  “Maybe I was wrong. Isn’t Sanducci an Italian name?”

  “Who knows? Even if it is, that doesn’t mean he is. Jimmy could be anything. For all we know some social worker plucked the name out of a hat like they did for me.”

  “You truly think the name Phoenix was random?”

  I had, but now I wasn’t so sure.

  Sawyer waved away my questions before I could ask them. “I told you already, I know nothing about your past beyond what you do. 1 just find the fact that you were named for a mythical bird that is reborn out of the ashes again and again to be curious.”

  A lot was, lately,

  “If Jimmy were working against us, I’d have known when I touched him.” I frowned, remembering the flicker of fangs and blood, his seemingly logical explanation of his subverted vampire nature. “Ruthie would have told me.”

  “Ruthie’s dead. Ghosts don’t know who killed them, that’s usually why they’re ghosts.”

  “She’s not a ghost.”

  “Then what is she?”

  Crap. I had no idea.

  “We’re back to Jimmy killing Ruthie? I thought we established that was impossible.”

  “I think we established it was impossible that I’d killed her.”

  “He wouldn’t.”

  Sawyer just stared at me and said nothing.

  “I refuse to believe that Jimmy would kill Ruthie.”

  “Maybe he didn’t kill her with his own fangs, but her identity was leaked, as well as the identity and whereabouts of all the others.”

  “He didn’t know all the others.”

  “Someone did.”

  “Even if the Strega is his—” I swallowed, and my throat clicked loudly in the still, empty morning. “Father. That doesn’t mean Jimmy betrayed the federation, that doesn’t mean he won’t kill him.”