Apocalypse Happens

by Apocalypse Happens (epub)

  “No, it’s an epidemic,” the man behind me insisted. “We aren’t going to be wiped out by AIDS but by a brain-eating bacteria that makes everyone believe their neighbor wants to kill them.”

  “The end of the world.” An elderly woman near the front nodded slowly. “Thought it was nine-eleven. But that was only the beginning.”

  The damn Grigori were having a field day. Mating with humans, repopulating the world with Nephilim, just as the prophecies stated. The end was definitely at hand. I wondered how long we had before complete panic set in and what we would do once it did.

  The pilot announced touchdown in ten minutes. Jimmy, who’d been pretending to sleep, sat up. I could tell by the tightness around his mouth that he’d been listening too and he didn’t like what he’d heard any more than I did.

  I probably should have sent Sanducci on his way. I didn’t need him to come to Brownport; I could handle Xander Whitelaw myself—but I didn’t trust Sanducci not to disappear the instant my back was turned. I’d wasted a lot of valuable time lately looking for him. I didn’t want to waste any more, so I let him think I needed help.

  Once on the ground, we picked up our checked bags—couldn’t carry knives on the plane, but we never went anywhere without them—then I headed for the rental-car area. However, Jimmy walked right out the front door, and in the interest of not losing him, I followed. He headed straight for a black Lincoln Navigator idling at the curb. Jimmy liked big cars. His last had been an obnoxiously huge Hummer—also black.

  The man who climbed out of the driver’s seat was also obnoxiously huge, but white. I held my breath, waiting for the whisper that, in the past, would signal a Nephilim, before I remembered that Ruthie no longer spoke to me. Harboring this demon was proving to be an even bigger pain in the ass than one might think.

  Though I’d allowed the transformation—allowed? Hell, I’d chased Jimmy down and stolen it—for the sake of the world, the consequences of embracing evil had been more painful than I had anticipated. Where before I’d heard Ruthie’s voice on the wind, I’d seen her in my dreams and she’d felt so much less gone, now she spoke through someone else and I was on my own.

  I watched Jimmy for a clue. He smiled and strode toward the guy with his hand outstretched, and I relaxed a bit. Sanducci had been doing this long enough to feel the vibe from a Nephilim. He might not know exactly what type of demon they were or exactly how to kill them, but I doubted he’d smack one of Satan’s henchmen on the back and say, “Good to see you, Thane.”

  Since Thane didn’t grow another head, or sprout claws and tear out Jimmy’s eyes, I joined them.

  Only to scramble back when the guy went down on one knee and bowed his head. “Mistress,” he murmured in a burr so Scottish I smelled heather.

  “What the hell?” I glanced at Jimmy. Taking my eyes off the giant Scotsman proved a mistake. He grabbed my hand, and I beaned him with my duffel bag.

  He didn’t fall down, but he didn’t wrap his huge arms around me and bear-hug me to death either. Instead, he peered up at me with eyes so blue they mimicked my own and rubbed at his strawberry blond head.

  “Ach, I jest wanted to kiss yer ring.”

  “I don’t have a ring.”

  “Ye should. It’s good for smackin’ folk with, right about here.” He made a jab toward his own eye. “A nice piece of silver about yer finger can split the skin to the bone.”

  “What is wrong with you?” I demanded.

  “Yer the leader of the light, aren’t ye now? I’m t’ swear my allegiance.”

  Ruthie had said that the members of the federation would come to me and pledge fealty. So far none had for several reasons.

  One—most of them were dead following an infiltration of our secret society. Two—I wasn’t exactly staying in one place or broadcasting my whereabouts. Three—I’d sent word through all the grapevines I had for everyone to continue doing their jobs and skip the swearing-allegiance portion of the program. But I supposed some might feel compelled upon meeting me to drop to their knees and kiss my ring.

  I glanced around. In LA, no one would have noticed any of this. In Indianapolis, people were staring.

  “Fine,” I said. “You’re sworn. Get up.”

  “Not until I’ve kissed yer hand.”

  “Sheesh, let him kiss you and be done,” Jimmy ordered, so I did.

  Thane’s lips were warm but his breath so cold my skin ached as if I’d been walking in the snow without gloves for hours.

  “What are you?” I asked.

  He lifted his head and smiled, revealing slightly pointy teeth. I snatched my hand away as he got to his feet, towering over me by at least ten inches. Considering I was five-ten in my casual flip-flops, giant wasn’t out of the question.

  “Nuckelavee,” he said, and tossed Jimmy the keys to the Lincoln.

  Then, with a wink, he jumped into a Jeep parked right behind the Navigator. The young woman at the wheel held her crucifix in my direction as she drove past. The sun sparked off of it and gave me a helluva headache. I fingered my collar. When I wore this, I could touch a blessed cross. When I didn’t, the icon gave me second-degree burns.

  Once I’d worn Ruthie’s crucifix—a connection to her as dear to me as her voice in my head and her presence in my dreams. But I’d chosen to embrace the darkness, to become it and to let it become a part of me. So, for now, perhaps forever, wearing Ruthie’s necklace was no longer possible.

  Jimmy was stowing his duffel in the cargo area, so I joined him, tossing mine in too. He reached up to shut the door, and I stayed his hand. There was more to this car than what met the eye. I could smell it.

  “Federation vehicle?”

  Instead of answering, Jimmy yanked up the false bottom. Beneath the carpeted base rested weapons of every imaginable metal. Guns with silver bullets. Golden knives. Bronze swords. Crossbows. Gallons of accelerant—gasoline, kerosene. Probably dynamite.

  “A rolling bomb,” I murmured. “Fabulous.”

  We got in, and Jimmy headed south toward Brownport.

  “What’s a nuckelavee?” I asked.

  “Thane is part Scottish Fuath fairy.”

  “Keep going.”

  “The Fuath are evil Gaelic water spirits.”

  “He’s evil?” I remembered the icy touch of his breath.

  “No. He’s a breed like me. His father was a Fuath, his mother human.”

  “His powers?”

  “Vampire breath that causes people, plants and animals to wither and die.”

  No wonder my skin had ached, but it took more than vampire breath to kill me.

  “He can also shape-shift,” Jimmy continued. “Half man, half horse.”

  “So a nuckelavee is a vampire, a shifter and a fairy?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “How do we kill one?”

  Jimmy blinked. “Why would we want to kill him? He’s on our side.”

  “So were you once, and then—shazaam—you weren’t.”

  Jimmy scowled and didn’t answer.

  To be fair, his disloyalty hadn’t been voluntary or permanent. He’d been captured, tortured and turned into a vampire against his will. But Jimmy had found his way back. He was as loyal now as I was.

  I hoped.

  “I need to know how to kill supernatural beings,” I continued. “What if I encounter a nuckelavee who chose the other side?”

  Jimmy sighed. “Freshwater repels them.”

  “Water repels a water spirit?”

  “Half water spirit. If you cross a stream, they can’t follow.”

  “I’ll remember that if one’s ever chasing me and I’m lucky enough to discover a stream nearby. But wait!” I put up one finger to signal a brilliant idea. “What if I just kill it? If only I knew how.”

  “Steel.”

  “Fairy. Right. Shit!” I smacked my fist against the dashboard.

  “What?” Jimmy looked around, one hand tightening on the steering wheel, the other going for the silver
switchblade he took everywhere he went.

  “If I’d known he was a fairy,” I said, “I could have asked him where to find a dagda.”

  Jimmy relaxed. “Oops.”

  “Any other way to kill a nuckelavee?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “How about a Fuath fairy?”

  “Sunlight.”

  “Really? Yet their offspring walks in the daytime.”

  “So do we,” Jimmy said.

  “Your father was a day walker.”

  Certain vampires—considered inferior by the rest of the vampire legion—couldn’t go out in the sun. Others—like Jimmy, me, his daddy—were day walkers. We could go out whenever the hell we wanted to.

  “There’s no rhyme or reason to this stuff,” Jimmy said. “You know that.”

  For the rest of the trip, Jimmy kept the radio turned up so high there could be no possibility of a conversation, and I let him. Whenever we talked lately someone got hurt. Usually me.

  Brownport appeared on the horizon. The highway bled into Main Street, lined by the usual businesses necessary for a small college town.

  The school, bordered by fields, stood at the far end of Brownport. We pulled into the only parking lot, and I pointed to the administration building, which housed all the faculty offices.

  Stalks of corn swayed in the heated afternoon breeze. Jimmy followed me to the door. It was locked. A note said the campus was closed until the fall semester, still a few weeks away. The last time I’d been here, summer school had been in session. Not a lot of kids, but some. The place hadn’t felt so—

  “Dead,” Jimmy murmured.

  I frowned. I was getting a really bad feeling. I used my cell to call Xander, but he didn’t answer.

  “Open it,” I ordered.

  Jimmy punched his fist through the glass. By the time he’d reached in and flipped the lock, the cuts had already healed.

  Inside, the building hadn’t changed a bit. The walls needed painting. There were water stains and cracks. I still didn’t know where they kept the elevator, but even if I had, I wouldn’t have bothered. I ran up the three flights of stairs with Jimmy right behind me.

  Whitelaw’s door stood open; light spilled into the hallway. “Xander!” I shouted as I skidded on the ancient yellowed tile.

  He didn’t answer, but he liked to listen to his iPod while working. Guns N’ Roses. Despite his button-down shirts and khaki trousers, or maybe because of them, Whitelaw badly wanted to be a rebel.

  I slipped as I neared the office, thought for an instant the roof was leaking again, though from the crackly state of the grass outside there’d been no rain for several weeks.

  I glanced down. A trickle of crimson spread over the threshold like a tiny creek running south. I palmed my knife and went in.

  The walls were decorated with blood, as was the floor, the desk, the books, the papers and what was left of Xander Whitelaw.

  Jimmy, coming up fast to the rear, bumped into me. I threw an elbow. Couldn’t help myself. When someone came at me from behind, I reacted.

  Blame it on the foster-care system. I did.

  “Oof,” Jimmy said, his breath stirring my hair. “That him?”

  “Yeah.”

  Jimmy stepped around me, checked for a pulse, even though the slice across Xander’s throat told the tale before Jimmy shook his head. “They trashed everything.” He flicked his finger, stained with Whitelaw’s blood, at the books and papers. “Even if there was info for us, we wouldn’t find it now.”

  “I doubt he wrote anything down.”

  “Whoever—whatever—got here before us did their best to torture something out of him.”

  Jimmy turned the professor’s arm over to reveal burn marks on the skin. Bruises made his face nearly unrecognizable. I thought I might be sick.

  “Do you think they got it?” Jimmy asked.

  Xander wasn’t a DK. He was just a guy. He might look like a blond Indiana Jones, but he wasn’t Indy. No one was.

  “Yes,” I whispered. “They got it.”

  “We need to go through his stuff anyway; then we’ll burn the place.”

  I nodded. I knew the drill. Leave behind nothing to arouse suspicion, and this—

  I traced my fingertips over Whitelaw’s shoulder. This was suspicious as hell.

  “You take that side.” Jimmy jerked his head to the right. “I’ll take this one.”

  We found nothing. I wasn’t surprised. If there’d been any information—written or otherwise—the Nephilim had it now.

  We checked every room in the place; then we started a fire in Xander’s office, setting it up to appear as if he’d fallen asleep working and dropped a cigarette onto a pile of ancient books. We’d call 911 once we were on the road. They might save the building, but the office and Xander himself would be gone.

  As we walked out, I snatched Xander’s hat—a replica of a familiar battered brown fedora—off the coat rack and took it along.

  “What was he?” Jimmy asked as we drove north again.

  “Professor of prophecy.”

  “I meant breed, fairy, psychic, what?”

  “Just a guy.”

  Jimmy’s hands jerked, and we nearly drove off the road. “He was human?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You recruited a human into the federation.”

  “He wasn’t in the federation; he was doing research.”

  “Are you nuts?” Jimmy shouted. I jumped. He rarely shouted, but when he did, it was always at me. “You can’t let just plain people in on this.”

  “I didn’t let him in on anything. He already knew.” Kind of.

  Xander had been studying the legends for years. He understood more about revelatory prophecy than just about anyone else. He’d put two and two together. He’d only needed me to come along and agree that it made four.

  “Just look where knowing got him,” Jimmy said through his teeth.

  “Ruthie was watching him,” I blurted. “She said he was good at his job.”

  “But she didn’t ask him to put his neck on the line.” I flinched, remembering the huge hole that had been sliced into Xander’s throat because of me. “She knew better. Only beings with supernatural powers have any chance of living through a meeting with a Nephilim, and not even some of them. Who else have you told about this that isn’t one of us?”

  “Nobod—” I froze, my lips still forming the word, but all the breath had left my body.

  “Who?” Jimmy demanded.

  My horrified gaze met his. I closed my mouth, swallowed, then managed to whisper, “Megan.”

  CHAPTER 7

  My best friend didn’t answer the phone—not at home and not at the bar.

  Since it was around happy hour at Murphy’s, she could easily be snowed with customers. She wouldn’t answer until things settled down. Even if she did, I wouldn’t have been able to accept her assurances that everything was all right. I’m sure there were Nephilim that could mimic a person’s voice and their appearance. The only way I’d know if Megan was okay would be to go to Milwaukee and touch her.

  Jimmy pointed Thane’s Navigator toward Wisconsin without my having to ask. “Anyone else in on the secret?”

  “No.”

  “You’re sure.”

  “Yes.”

  “You understand what a secret is, don’t you?”

  I gave him a glare.

  “What were you thinking?” he demanded.

  “Megan saw a Nephilim. What was I supposed to do?”

  “Lie.”

  “That’s what you’re good at. Me, not so much.” Especially to Megan. She was a mom. She could smell a lie before it even took form in my head, let alone came out of my mouth.

  “You can’t put human beings in danger like this. Even if they’re aware of the Nephilim, they have no means of defending themselves against them.”

  “I had a guard sent to watch over her.”

  His forehead creased. “Who?”

  �
��I’m—uh—not sure.”

  “Do you know the meaning of ‘sent’?”

  I narrowed my eyes and managed to keep my temper. “I asked Summer to send a DK, and she did.” Or so she’d said. I’d been a little too busy to follow up on that.

  Jimmy gave me a quick glance, then returned his gaze to the road.

  “She wouldn’t say she was going to do something and then not do it just to mess with me.” I grabbed his arm. “This is Megan’s life we’re talking about.”

  Jimmy shifted, removing himself from my grasp. “You should’ve thought of that before you told her the truth.”

  The Bradley Clock loomed up next to the freeway, behind it the skyline of Milwaukee, behind that the navy blue expanse of Lake Michigan. Another ten minutes and we’d be at Murphy’s.

  We’d tried to reach Summer. I wasn’t shocked when she didn’t pick up for me, but she ignored Jimmy’s summons too. Of course if she was flying without wings it might be a little hard to answer a cell phone while avoiding low-cruising planes.

  The Navigator had blown a tire outside of Gary, and Thane didn’t appear to believe in spares—or perhaps he’d had to toss it out in order to fit in all the ammunition beneath the rear panel.

  Though both Jimmy and I were extremely strong and equally fast, we weren’t magic and we couldn’t manufacture a new tire from thin air like some people who weren’t really people. At any rate, the tire fiasco slowed us down, and we didn’t pull up outside of Murphy’s until long after closing.

  Located on the East Side of Milwaukee, Murphy’s was a throwback to the time when every neighborhood had its own personal pub. Thus, houses surrounded Murphy’s. One of those was Megan’s—an aluminum-sided two-story where she lived with her three children: Anna, Aaron and Ben. I’d come to the house a thousand times before—but only one other time in the middle of the night. A night I never wanted to revisit—the night Max had died. I swallowed thickly as the memory loomed large.

  She’d been waiting on the steps. She’d already known—and they called me psychic. But I guess when Max didn’t arrive home on time, when it was all over the news that there’d been a shooting in the city and an officer had died, she really hadn’t needed to be psychic, she hadn’t needed to look at my face or wait for me to open my mouth, to know her world had just changed.