Luther was dressed nearly the same as he’d been the first time I’d seen him. The clothes were just newer and a whole lot cleaner. Sneakers, jeans several sizes too large and a T-shirt. Plain. Olive green. Something an army recruit might wear in basic training, which is kind of what this was.
He appeared to have put on some weight. A good thing; the kid had been far too skinny. He was tall—probably six-two—and his feet and hands revealed the promise of more growth to come.
His skin was darker than mine, lighter than Sawyer’s, his hair kinky and a gorgeous combination of gold and sun-streaked brown. His eyes were light—hazel right now, turning amber when his beast began to purr.
I climbed out of the rental and confronted the boy. “I told you to run.”
He rolled his eyes. “Why would I run away when I came there to save you?”
“To save us.” I glanced at Sawyer, who shrugged. “Did you know he could do . . . whatever that was?”
Sawyer shook his head.
“Who taught you?” I demanded. “Summer?”
The fairy had struck up a friendship with Luther, or perhaps it was vice versa. The kid had issues with strange men. I didn’t blame him. I’d seen what lay in his past, and it was much the same as what lay in Jimmy’s and my own—people we should have been able to trust proving untrustworthy.
“The fairy has been obsessed with Sanducci, as usual.” Sawyer took a drag on a cigarette he hadn’t had an instant before, then blew out a stream of smoke on a sigh. “She’s been no help training the boy at all.”
“So you’ve been training him?”
“Some.”
My gaze sought Luther’s. “That’s okay?”
Luther nodded. Where, at first, he’d been unable to stand near Sawyer without twitching, would sidle closer to me whenever possible, now he seemed more confident, less uncertain and no longer frightened at all. Might have been teen bravado and very good acting, but I didn’t think so.
“You’re sure,” I pressed.
“I’m as powerful as he is.” The kid lifted his chin. “He tries anything, I’ll tear him up.”
Behind the boy’s back Sawyer’s smirk was illuminated by the red-orange glow of his cigarette. We both knew better, but there was no point in telling Luther. If he felt safer believing he could take Sawyer, then let him. Sawyer would never touch Luther inappropriately. Sawyer had been touched that way enough himself.
“Why’d you fight at all if you knew a spell to get rid of them?”
“Because I could,” the boy said with all the arrogance of his youth and the pride of his lion.
“Just because we can fight doesn’t mean we should. Especially if there’s a way to end the Nephilim without bloodshed.”
Luther’s gaze flicked to mine. “I needed blood.”
“Theirs?” He shrugged, which I took as a “yes.” “You aren’t ready to fight yet.”
The boy’s shoulders straightened. “Am too. I been fightin’ all my life.”
“Not things like this.”
“I did fine.” He spread his big hands wide. “Not a mark on me.”
“Anymore.”
“I heal just like you and him.”
“We aren’t indestructible, Luther. We can die.”
“Speak for yourself,” Sawyer murmured, and I shot him a glare. He wasn’t helping.
“You brought me here to become one of you,” Luther insisted. “I can’t if you don’t let me.”
“But—”
“He’s right, Phoenix,” Sawyer interrupted, flicking the remnants of his cigarette away. “He’s more prepared than you were.”
Luther had known there were demons out there, had sensed them and fought, if not actual Nephilim, then humans who were close enough. When I’d discovered the whole demon deal, I was more shocked than I should have been.
I was a cop once. I’d seen things that still made me start up in the night, sweaty and shaking. I should have figured out the score long before Ruthie’s death opened my eyes.
I contemplated Luther. “You need to be more careful.”
He snorted. “They’re all toast. I think they need to be more careful.”
Which reminded me.
“If Sawyer didn’t teach you the spell and Summer didn’t, then—”
The air stilled, yet my hair stirred in an impossible breeze. Luther’s carriage changed; his head tilted in a way that was more feminine than masculine; his shoulders rounded so that he seemed ancient and tired with it; even his eyes grew darker, appearing brown instead of hazel.
He opened his mouth, and Ruthie’s voice came out. “I taught him, child. Who do you think?”
CHAPTER 11
“That still freaks me out,” I muttered.
Since I’d released the vampire side of my dhampir nature, Ruthie no longer spoke in my head or my dreams but through Luther’s mouth.
“Don’t matter how I talk to you, Lizbeth, just that I do continue to talk. We do what we gotta do to win this war.”
“You should know.”
Ruthie had taken me in when no one else would. She’d loved me more than anyone else in my life ever had, and because of that I’d adored her. I’d have done anything for Ruthie Kane. When she’d died in my arms, I’d been devastated.
Or at least I would have been devastated if the transfer of power hadn’t knocked me into a three-day coma. Then, when I’d woken up, I’d had my hands a little full with the end of the world raining down and monsters I hadn’t known existed all trying to kill me.
“You wanna explain that comment, Lizbeth?”
I really didn’t but probably should.
“Jimmy said—” Sawyer made a derisive sound, which I ignored. The two of them had been at each other’s throats—sometimes literally—forever, it seemed. “He said that you only took in kids with special talents. Ones you could send off to fight this war.”
“Not all of my kids are fighters.”
My heart lightened. Maybe what I’d always believed about Ruthie was partially true, that her devotion to those who needed someone to love them so badly was real.
“Some of them didn’t have the talent,” she continued. “It was nearly impossible to gauge power until I got them under my roof.”
My hope sputtered and went out. “So you took us in to use us. To sacrifice us on the altar of Armageddon.”
Ruthie-Luther tilted her-his head, studying me with eyes that were so much like Ruthie’s, set in a face that wasn’t, I got chills. “I believe I was the one sacrificed, Lizbeth.”
“Just because I’m still alive doesn’t mean I haven’t lost things.” I rubbed my hand over my face. “Some of them were more important to me than my life.”
Ruthie, for instance. And then there was Jimmy.
Those eyes continued to stare at me, and they knew so much. “You ain’t gonna forgive me for that, are you?”
“I’m not sure I can.”
I’d discovered only recently that Ruthie’s betrayal hadn’t just been in her deluding me into believing I’d been chosen by her for my charming personality and not my psychic abilities. Ruthie had also ordered Jimmy to break my heart by sleeping with Summer. She’d wanted me to “see,” to hate him so much that when he left me to become a demon killer, I wouldn’t search for him.
“I knew what I was doing,” Ruthie said.
“So did Jimmy.”
“You gonna punish him for that forever?”
“Forever isn’t as long as it used to be.”
Ruthie-Luther’s mouth curved, but the expression was more than a little sad. “You’d have done exactly what I did if you’d been me.”
“I am you now.”
“And are you any different? You made him change you into a monster, though he begged you not to. You left him with the Dagda, and you saw what he’d do.”
I flinched, then fell back on the same pathetic excuse used by every goose-stepping moron from the beginning of time. “You ordered me to.”
; “We all have our orders,” Ruthie-Luther whispered, and in her-his voice lay all the sorrows of the ages.
“I don’t like it,” I muttered.
“You and everyone else who’s ever had to take orders.”
She had a point, but then Ruthie usually did.
“If there’s a spell to end Nephilim without battling them by hand, why don’t we just cast it over the earth and watch them burn?”
“Nothing’s ever that simple, child. The spell I taught Luther was for Boudas.”
“Witches that can shift into hyenas.” I’d seen one before.
“Since a big cat is the hyenas’ only predator, the spell required someone of African descent, with the blood of an African big cat. Spells are very specific.”
“How is it that you knew this one?”
Luther’s lips curved. “I’ve been ’round a long time, Lizbeth. You’d be surprised at what I know.”
“Probably not,” I muttered. What I wished was that along with Ruthie’s power, she’d also passed on all she’d learned. It would have saved everyone a lot of hassle.
“Boudas are from Africa,” I pointed out. “What are they doing here?”
“There are things all over the place that don’t belong. When the Grigori first arrived, Africans lived in Africa, but they don’t anymore. Or at least that’s no longer the only place to find someone with the DNA of a matriarchal witch from the ancient country of Bouda.”
I rubbed my forehead. “So there’s no telling what kinds of beasties are going to crop up now that the Grigori are back.”
“No. The Grigori might not even know what they’re creating.”
“They won’t care as long as it’s bad.”
“Everything they bring forth is gonna be bad,” Ruthie-Luther said. “The Grigori are pure evil. They’re injecting a strain of wickedness into the population that hasn’t been seen since the fall. I have no doubt that there’ll be Nephilim created now that haven’t ever walked the earth before.”
“And we’ll have no clue how to end them.” Not that I had much of a clue as it was.
“We need to come up with a new plan,” Ruthie said.
“What’s wrong with the old one? Kill them all, ruin Doomsday.”
“That’s been workin’ real well so far.”
Sarcasm. Goody.
“Doomsday was set in motion when the leader of the darkness killed the leader of the light,” Ruthie continued. “Me.”
“Doomsday being a period of chaos that leads up to the final battle between good and evil.”
“Armageddon,” Ruthie agreed.
“But in the interim, the Grigori are released from the pit of hell and repopulate the world with Nephilim.”
“Creating the army to fight that great battle.”
“What do the Grigori even look like?” I asked.
As far as I knew no one had seen any yet, which was just plain weird.
Sawyer had been silent, but now he chimed in. “The Grigori are chaos spirits. They look like whomever they’ve possessed.”
“Across the globe,” Ruthie said, “there’s been a significant increase in possession and insanity, a rash of rapes, suicides, murders and unexplained deaths.”
I’d heard this already—on the television, the radio, the streets. Chaos spirits were spreading chaos. It was what they did.
I imagined all the innocent people who didn’t understand what was happening. Hearing voices that told them to do horrible things, having dreams of murder and mayhem, of violent sex with a stranger, or even someone they knew, then waking up covered in blood the next day or pregnant the next month, and the only clue was the memory of that horrible dream.
What if someone you trusted, loved, suddenly became violent, abusive, evil? What if they hurt you or your children? What if you began to see someone else behind eyes that should have been familiar? Would you think you were crazy or that they were?
I shivered. Doomsday, chaos, Apocalypse—they were all the same thing. A time when the surreal became real. Horror became commonplace. The beginning of the end.
They were now.
“I haven’t seen anything strange, felt anyone”—I moved my hands helplessly—“weird.”
“You’ve been a little busy with eclipse demons,” Ruthie said. “Among other things.”
“Wouldn’t the Grigori attack us?”
Luther’s head shook. “They leave that to the Nephilim. Right now, all the Grigori are concerned with is making more supernatural half demons. They don’t want to bring themselves to the attention of the DKs or the seers and have their fun interrupted.”
“How is it that we’ve got a shitload of Nephililm running around,” I asked, “and the Grigori have only been free a few weeks?”
Ruthie frowned. “I don’t follow.”
“Nephilim are born of demon and human. Being born takes a while. Usually nine months.”
“Only breeds and . . .”—she paused and jerked her chin in Sawyer’s direction, which I took to include those who were “other” as well, “other” being offspring of two Nephilim—“are literally born of a woman as children who grow and become something different. Nephilim are created; they spring forth fully grown.”
“Spring forth how?” I asked, imagining all sorts of bad things.
“Many ways.” When Ruthie didn’t elaborate, I knew that most of the bad things in my head were true. They usually were.
“How do we kill the Grigori?” I blurted.
“We can’t kill them,” Sawyer said. “They’re demons.”
“So are the Nephilim. We’ve been killing them since they were invented.”
“Nephilim are half demons. It’s their humanity that allows them to die.”
“You’re saying we’re screwed?” What else was new? “That we just keep killing the demon seed but we can never end the demons themselves?”
“No,” Sawyer murmured. “That’s not what I’m saying.”
He went silent, and I wanted to shriek in frustration. He was always so calm. I guess living forever, or close enough, could do that. But if there was ever a time to get excited, now was that time.
“What do we do?” I managed to keep from shouting, but barely.
“We find the Key of Solomon,” he continued in the same calm voice. “Read the instructions for dealing with the Grigori; then we deal with them. Preferably before they repopulate the world with that army and deal with us first.”
“Works for me,” I said. “But how are we going to search for the key and keep the steadily multiplying demon horde from overrunning the earth.”
I remembered the varcolacs—how they’d kept coming and coming, how much harder they’d seemed to kill than the average Nephilim and how I’d had to release my beast to do it. The Boudas hadn’t been any easier. Without Luther, Sawyer and I might not be having this conversation.
“The Nephilim I’ve faced lately seem more confident,” I said slowly, “if possible, even more vicious.”
“Imminent victory will give anyone confidence,” Sawyer said.
“They aren’t going to win.”
He lifted a brow and then a bare, laconic shoulder. “If you say so.”
“I do. And so does the Bible.”
His lips curved. “But there’s the Book of Samyaza, which tells another story.”
“I choose not to believe in fairy tales.”
“Why not? You believe in fairies.”
Why did I even try to reason with the man? There was no reason in him.
“Children, children,” Ruthie-Luther admonished; the words when formed by that childish mouth almost made me laugh. “Eventually we’ll need to find the Book of Samyaza and destroy it. Without the thing, they have no instructions for winning and no talisman that guarantees invincibility.”
“Just because the book guarantees invincibility doesn’t make it true.”
“What is there about ‘guarantee’ that you don’t understand?” Ruthie asked.
“S
o it is true?” I asked. “Possess the Book of Samyaza and win?”
“We won’t know until—”
“They win,” Sawyer finished.
“If the book is so damn important, then why are they after the Key of Solomon?”
“Could be they don’t want us to have it, just like we don’t want them to have the book.”
I remembered what the varcolac had said. “Or one of the little people wants to command the demons.”
Ruthie-Luther’s dark gaze sharpened. “Whoever commands them becomes the Prince.”
“Of Darkness?” I asked.
“Pretty much.”
“I’m confused. When the Grigori flew free, whoever released them should have been possessed by Satan.”
“Theoretically,” Sawyer murmured.
“Explain.”
“My . . .” He paused, unable to utter the word “mother.” “The woman of smoke, if she actually released the Grigori, is dead. So—” He spread his nimble hands.
I blinked, trying to connect the dots. “So he’s floating around looking for a host?”
Sawyer shrugged. Ruthie did too.
“Fan-damn-tastic,” I muttered.
We remained silent for a moment.
“I thought if I killed the leader of the darkness, we’d get a replay.” Or at least that had been the rumor.
“Even if that was true,” Ruthie said, “and we don’t know for sure, the Grigori were released before you killed her.”
“Great. I became a vampire for no reason at all.”
“If you hadn’t killed the woman of smoke when you did, they’d be one step closer to victory. The Naye’i would be the Prince, and I think we’d all be dead.”
Ruthie was right. At least I’d managed to end that bitch before she became the most powerful evil on earth. Point for me.
“How did she release the Grigori?” I asked.
“No idea,” Ruthie said. “Though there might be a clue in the key.”
“If she’d had the Key of Solomon, the Nephilim wouldn’t be searching for it now.”
“Regardless of how she released them,” Ruthie said, “she released them. We need to—”
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