Any Given Doomsday (The Phoenix Chronicles)

by Lori Handeland

  Of course, stranger things had happened.

  “Sticks and stones,” I said. “There’s really nothing you can say that’s going to make me leave him behind.”

  “Leave him? Just where is it you think you are going?”

  “After we kill you, maybe we’ll take a vacation.”

  The Strega started laughing again. I really hated that laugh.

  “He has wondered about me nearly all of his life. Did you really think he’d kill me once he found me?”

  “How did he find you?”

  The Strega lifted one shoulder. “I let him.”

  “You knew he’d come to New York once he heard the seer was killed,” I guessed.

  My only answer was a slight tilting of his lips.

  I could easily determine what had happened next. Jimmy had done what Jimmy did best; he’d gone searching for a vampire, and this vampire had allowed himself to be found. Jimmy had been trapped as neatly as I had.

  The Strega moved so fast all I saw was a blur, straight toward me. I gave a little squeak, then he was gone.

  I whirled. He held a knife that glinted golden in the harsh overhead lights against Jimmy’s throat. If what the Strega said was true, if Jimmy hadn’t killed him when he had the chance, if he’d been won to the Strega’s side somehow, I should just let the medieval vampire witch do his worst. But there was always the chance the Nephilim was lying.

  A damn good chance.

  “You do not believe he’s one of us now,” the Strega said. “You think that if you can have a moment with him, you can bring him back. But life doesn’t work that way, Miss Phoenix. You of all people should know better.”

  There was very little I hated more than when evil vampire witches were right.

  “He has two natures, vampire and human. Until recently he’s lived as one of you; he had no idea who he was. But since we shared blood, he’s become more like me. For me he would do anything. Which is why I conceived him in the first place.”

  Understanding dawned and the Strega smirked. “Your face is so wondrously expressive. Yes, I planted him in his mother’s womb so that he could be positioned right in the middle of the federation. A talent like his would never go unnoticed. It was only a matter of time until he was right where I wanted him to be.”

  “Why now?” I asked. The strega lifted a brow. “He’s been your creation from day one, so why declare war now and not three years past or maybe ten in the future?”

  The Strega’s mirth faded and an expression of annoyance took its place. “I’ve been trying for years to get into his head. Spells and charms. Nothing worked. He’s much stronger than I thought.”

  For an instant I felt a sense of pride that Jimmy had resisted. I opened my mouth to say so, but the strega kept yapping.

  “Destiny works both ways, seer. Everything came together. My son inside the enemy camp, those with the talents I needed willing to join under my banner, and several very good years in the stock market.” He shrugged. “Even doomsday costs money.”

  “What if serendipity”—I couldn’t get the word destiny out of my mouth in regard to so much blood and death—”hadn’t arrived before Jimmy died?” He was on the cutting edge of the battle, after all, had been for years. Sooner or later, everyone’s luck ran out. Just look at mine.

  “Seer.” He shook his head and made a “shame on you” sound by clicking his tongue against his teeth. “You think Jimmy’s an only child?”

  Before I had time to curse, the Strega sliced Jimmy’s neck with the golden knife.

  I took a step forward, and with an absent flick of his free hand, the Strega threw me into the wall without even touching me.

  My back hit with a thud, my head with a crack. The silver knife skidded across the floor, but I barely noticed as I slid into a dizzy heap. I blinked hard, trying to make the Tweety Birds quit chirping so loudly while they whirled round and round my head.

  The Strega leaned down and lapped the blood from his son’s skin. Jimmy moaned, the same sound I’d heard when I’d accidentally cut him, a sound I now recognized as ecstasy, not pain. I turned my face as my stomach rolled.

  “He isn’t human,” the Strega whispered. “He never was.”

  My nausea receded; anger took its place. “He’s more human than you think.”

  “I’ve awakened his lust for blood and pain. He cannot fight it anymore. He doesn’t want to.”

  The Strega suckled Jimmy’s neck. I wanted to gag again.

  “If he’s on your side and all our plans are crap, why didn’t you just kill me the instant I walked in here?” I asked.

  Lifting his head, the Strega licked his lips. “He is my son, and the one thing he’s asked of me in return for all he’s done…” He straightened, petting Jimmy’s sweat-matted hair fondly. “Is that I give him you.”

  Chapter 32

  His words caused a spark of hope. My mistake.

  “You think he’s still Jimmy?” The strega sneered. “That he begged me for your life? Watch.” He lifted the gold knife and sliced his own arm.

  Note to self—pure gold doesn’t make a strega burst into flames. Too bad. That would have been a bonfire worth watching.

  The strega waved his bleeding arm in front of Jimmy’s face, and like a baby desperate for nourishment, Jimmy latched on.

  “The more he drinks, the more vampire he becomes. Soon there will be nothing left of the human at all.”

  “I don’t believe you,” I said.

  The strega removed his arm from Jimmy’s mouth. It came away with a sucking sound that almost made me hurl. Jimmy fought against the restraints as the strega chuckled and patted him on the head. Then Jimmy’s eyes snapped open, and I saw the truth.

  No one was home.

  He recognized me because he said, “Elizabeth.” Except Jimmy never called me that.

  Why hadn’t I listened to Sawyer and avoided this trap? Would I have, even if I’d known?

  No. Because Jimmy, back when he’d been Jimmy, would never have left me here alone.

  “She came, Father,” Jimmy whispered. “Just like you wanted.” He jerked against the chains. “Let me go now.”

  The Strega’s long fingers, which should have had razor-sharp, scraggly fingernails but were instead manicured and buffed until they shone, stroked Jimmy’s hair again. “You don’t want to kill her right away. What fun is that? Besides, the blood of a seer—” He licked his lips, the gesture so suggestive, so… hungry I had another “settle down” talk with my stomach. “Ambrosia,” the Strega finished.

  His gaze met mine, and the smirk was back. I clenched my hands to keep from launching myself across the room and smacking him. He’d only smack me back, and he wouldn’t even need his hands.

  I put aside thoughts of killing him. I didn’t yet know how. But I’d spend every moment I had left trying to figure it out; then I’d do it.

  I dragged myself upright, thrilled when my legs didn’t wobble. Having a plan, however vague, always helped.

  Jimmy’s dark eyes followed my every movement, like a dog with a juicy steak, or perhaps a wolf that’s just seen something small and tasty skitter free of cover. For the first time I was very glad of those chains.

  His eyes had an odd flare of red at the center, making me think this body was just a Jimmy-shell, a home for something else, and that scared me more than anything had in a long time. Because if that were true, then where was Jimmy? Could I reach him if he were truly gone?

  The door opened, and a man and a woman, black suit and gray, tromped in.

  Vampire.

  I was beginning to think that Ruthie’s whisper was stuck.

  “They’re all vampires?” I asked.

  The Strega contemplated me for several seconds, as if trying to decide if it would help his cause or hurt it for me to know what I was dealing with. He decided, as I already had, that it didn’t make much difference what I knew. I’d never leave here alive.

  “They are,” he agreed. “My personal army.”<
br />
  “They look like lawyers,” I mused, “which I guess makes sense. Bloodsuckers.”

  He dipped his head in an Old World gesture rarely seen in this one. “We fit in well here, and Manhattan has always been the best place for those of our kind. So many people, so little time.”

  Sawyer had said that New York was a place where the Nephilim thronged. I suspected a vampire, or a thousand, could survive in the big city virtually undetected. Who would notice a missing street person here, a tourist there? And so what if they did? I doubted anyone would ever find the bodies.

  The vamps suddenly lifted me right off my feet.

  “I can walk,” I protested. They didn’t speak, didn’t even glance my way. They were a little robotic.

  Vampire robots. The movie would probably be a blockbuster. People were such sheep.

  I winced at my thoughts. For the vampires, people were sheep, or maybe cattle. Definitely food. I did not plan to be the next course on anyone’s plate.

  As the vampires hustled me from the torture chamber, which appeared to have been staged for my benefit, or perhaps Jimmy’s pleasure—his moaning at the pain of the cuts was pretty damn creepy—I searched for any weakness in their defenses.

  I didn’t find one, unless you counted the ease with which I’d gotten in, and since they’d been waiting for me, had obviously let me in, only making a token resistance at the front so I wouldn’t bolt, that didn’t count. They hud played me just right, no doubt because Jimmy had told them how.

  Into the elevator we went. Boy vamp swiped a key card, girl vamp pressed P.

  Penthouse. Swell. The first time I’d ever be in one and I really didn’t want to go.

  The elevator opened, and instead of lifting me and carrying me, they just shoved—both of them at the same time, as if they could communicate telepathically, or perhaps they only had one brain between them. I flew off my feet, landing on my hands and knees in the middle of the room.

  “A simple this is your floor would have been sufficient,” I muttered.

  The only answer was the soft swoosh of the doors, followed by the muted whine of the elevator descending.

  I glanced behind me. They’d both left. Scrambling up, I examined the call button. It required one of the key cards to activate. I wasn’t surprised.

  Penthouse? Prison?

  Potato? Pot-a-toe?

  I faced the wall of windows. Since this was the tallest structure in the area, except for the Empire State Building, I didn’t have to stare into another building full of workers scurrying ratlike through a maze of cubicles.

  Out there I saw only navy blue night, a few distant stars not overshadowed by the lights of Broadway, Fifth Avenue, hell, every avenue.

  For a minute I missed Friedenberg so badly I ached with it. I had a very bad feeling I wasn’t ever going to see home again.

  The rest of the place was pure penthouse, and when I say that I mean decorations by Larry Flynt.

  The color scheme was black, accented by glass and chrome, just like the building itself. The sofa was black leather, shiny but soft, with a control panel on the arm. One touch and the thing sprang outward, unfolding into a bed. A second button and music swirled around the room. Barry White. Oh, brother.

  The kitchen appeared as if it had never been used, and why would it have been? The entire building seemed to prefer its nourishment straight from the vein.

  The bathroom was electric-white ceramic tile with a thin thread of black running through. The tub was huge, big enough for two, with buttons to control the jets and once again to cue Barry.

  When I turned on the bedroom lights, I winced at the explosion of color after so much black and white. Red, red, everywhere—the walls, the bedspread, the carpet. My head began to pound just looking at it. How could anyone sleep in that room?

  I had a feeling no one did.

  Was this seduction scenario for me? Why? I didn’t get the impression that the Strega, or the new and not-so-improved Jimmy Sanducci, bothered with such trivialities. They took what they wanted; then they disposed of what was left.

  I drifted into the living room, hit the button to turn the couch back into a couch, then sat down. I tried the remote for the huge plasma television mounted on the wall. All I got was porn.

  With a sound of disgust I jabbed at the off button, then laid my head against the buttery leather. Seconds later, I was talking to Ruthie.

  Chapter 33

  I ran through the open gate and up the walkway. This house was sanctuary, at least in my head.

  Ruthie waited at the kitchen table with two cups of tea. The children played in the yard, their happy voices spilling through the open window.

  “Why didn’t you warn me?” I asked as I sat across from her.

  Ruthie’s finely arched brows arched even further. “About what?”

  “Jimmy’s gone to the dark side. I think—” I took a deep breath, let it out, then swallowed. “I think I’m going to have to kill him.”

  “Could be.” Ruthie sipped her tea. “Could be.”

  “I’m supposed to kill him?” My voice was too high and broke on the word kill. Can you blame me?

  “No, child, you’re supposed to save him. You’re the only one who can.”

  “Sawyer said you could have saved yourself. That you knew the Nephilim were coming for you.”

  Ruthie took another sip. “So?”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “Death was my destiny.”

  “Death is everyone’s destiny,” I snapped. “I needed you.”

  “You have me. It’s much better this way. You’ll see.”

  1 sighed. If it was better or worse, it didn’t matter. Ruthie was dead, and I was trapped with Jimmy the dhampir traitor. What was I going to do?

  “Remember the most important thing in this war,” Ruthie murmured as if I’d asked the question out loud. Maybe I had.

  “Kill them before they kill you?” It seemed like a good rule.

  Ruthie didn’t speak at first. I could tell by the way she took her time that she was counting to ten while she did it. She’d counted to ten a lot around me in the past. She’d no doubt count to ten more in the future. If there was one.

  “The most important thing to remember, Lizbeth, is that love is always stronger than hate.” I opened my mouth, and she lifted one finger. “You loved Jimmy once; you love him still. There’s power in that, such strength.”

  “Jimmy’s gone.”

  “No, he’s not. He’s lost. All you have to do is find him.”

  “How?”

  “You’ll know when the time comes.”

  And then she was gone, and I was back in the Penthouse penthouse, but I was no longer alone. I knew that as well as I knew the scent of Jimmy’s skin.

  I took a deep breath. Cinnamon, soap, and water. Still the same. How could that be?

  Someone had turned out all the lights, and the only illumination came from the reflection of the city below us.

  He slid out of the shadows, his hair wet and slicked away from his face. The blood was gone; only a few thin slices of white remained on his chest where the cuts had been. His loose black pants rode so low I expected them to fall off. I could see his hipbones jutting just above the waistband. He looked even thinner than he had when he’d shown up in Milwaukee. I suppose an all-liquid diet could do that to a man.

  How long had he been here? A few days at most. Didn’t mean he hadn’t been running himself ragged, forgetting to eat, ever since Ruthie died.

  In another life, another world, with another me, I might be compelled to feed him. Unfortunately, in this world, what he wanted to eat was me.

  I cringed at the double entendre and put it straight out of my head. Panic right now would get me nowhere.

  I didn’t remember coming to my feet, but I had. Good. I didn’t want to be trapped on the couch, with Jimmy looming over me. Not that I wasn’t trapped in this room and in the biggest pickle of my life.

  He moved so fa
st, I had no sense he was coming until he was there, so close his body brushed mine, our faces only centimeters apart. I couldn’t help it, I took a step back. My legs hit the couch, and I almost went down.

  He grabbed me by the arms, and now our bodies weren’t merely brushing, but plastered together like lovers.

  I lifted my gaze. He smiled. For an instant, in the half-light, he resembled the Jimmy I’d always craved. Then he tilted his head and the strange red flare in the center of his eyes was visible again.

  “Let me go.”

  He didn’t even acknowledge the words, just continued to stare into my eyes as if searching. But he was the one who was lost.

  “So.” His fingers tightened, the pressure, the pain, causing me to come up on my toes, rubbing my breasts against his bare chest. “Didn’t take you long to fuck the skinwalker and have a vision. I figured you’d be there a few weeks at least before he managed to loosen you up.”

  I tensed at the crudeness but refused to look away. “Was that necessary?”

  “I hear that it was. What I want to know is, was it good for you?”

  I couldn’t resist. “Better than you.”

  He let me go so abruptly I fell onto the couch with a little bounce.

  “Never use his name again.” Jimmy’s voice was a low, rumbling growl. Not human, not beast, but both.

  “I didn’t,” I pointed out.

  If Jimmy was completely absent, if he was possessed, or no longer human, then why was he feeling the very human emotion of jealousy? If he didn’t love me just a little, somewhere in there, then why would he care so much that I’d slept with Sawyer?

  As bizarre as that spark of jealousy was, it gave me hope. If he could feel that, he could feel more, and if I could get him to remember the love, we might just have a chance.

  Love is always stronger than hate, Ruthie had said, and once before, a good memory of a time when our lives had been filled with love had brought him back from a lesser darkness.

  I needed to believe what she’d said was true. It was all that I had.

  He stalked back and forth in front of the wall of windows. It occurred to me that while he knew I had come into the fullness of Ruthie’s powers, he was unaware of the empathy that made me as powerful as any breed. He couldn’t know. That talent might save my life.