“I thought God was talking to me,” he said.
“Maybe he was.” Probably he was.
“But I also had nightmares of horrible creatures hiding behind the faces of humans.”
“Join the club,” I muttered.
He appeared intrigued, but he continued with his story. “My family was very religious. Psychics, magic, soothsayers—bad idea.”
“Because?”
“Ever hear, Thou shall not suffer a witch to live?”
“Sounds like something you’d get in Salem. Over three hundred years ago.”
“I’ve heard it more recently than that.”
I’d done it more recently, but now wasn’t the time to confess.
“I was given a choice—priesthood or . . .” His voice faded; his gaze drifted into the past.
“Death?” I prompted. I might not suffer his parents to live if they’d threatened that. I had memories of my own “witch hunters” that I’d like to erase. People like us always did.
“No.” Bram straightened, clearing his throat. “Psych ward.”
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen.”
My eyes narrowed. I’d been an orphan—or at least I’d thought I was—and spent a lot of time in places and with people I did not want to remember. But the older I got, the more I discovered that having parents wasn’t always so great, either.
“You went into the priesthood at fourteen?”
“Seminary high school, then the seminary, then—” He rolled his hand to indicate and so on. “I thought the dreams would stop when I gave my life to the church. Obviously I was being possessed by a demon.”
“But they didn’t stop, because you weren’t possessed by anything. You have a gift.”
“Or a curse.”
I’d often thought the same.
“You dreamed of the Nephilim, and they came.”
“I’d dream about a person, then I’d see the terrible things they’d done, that they would do, and the horrific beast that lived inside them.”
“And then?”
“A day, a week, a month later, there they’d be. They’d look just like everyone else, but as soon as I saw them I remembered and for just an instant I could see the demon they tried to hide.”
Interesting. Most seers heard a voice or had a dream. But I’d yet to meet one who could peer past the mask and see the truth. And most seers just saw. DKs fought. Until the recent heavy losses of federation life had changed everything, I’d been the first one who was both.
“What are you?” I asked
“I’m Bram.”
“Not who. What?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Your parents. Could they do anything . . . freaky?”
He straightened. “No! I’m not one of them.” His mouth curled in horror.
I kind of thought he was; he just didn’t know it yet. Though after the initial ripple at his approach, I hadn’t felt anything else. No buzz of a Nephilim, no hum of a breed. Which was downright strange.
I reached out, brushed his arm with my fingertips. “Never mind,” I soothed.
Once I’d have been able to touch him and hear a whisper revealing what he was. Now I touched him and felt his fear, his loneliness, his hatred of the Nephilim. I caught flashes of battles, glimpses of near misses, glances of victories, but I heard nothing beyond the harsh rasp of his breath.
I was going to get rid of this demon inside me even if I had to rip the thing out myself.
Bram withdrew his arm. “What are you?”
My eyes searched his. “What do you think I am?”
His gaze wandered over me, from my increasingly shaggy dark brown hair, to the jeweled collar around my neck, touching on the tip of the phoenix wing that curled over my shoulder just a bit. There was nothing odd about a girl my age having a tat at the nape of her neck. However, Bram’s expression made me think he had an inkling of what it might be for.
He continued to examine me, peering at the turquoise that rested between my very nice breasts. The flush that crept over his cheeks as he moved on made me wonder how long he’d been out of the priesthood.
“Bram?” I asked. “What do you think I am?”
His gaze returned to mine. His pupils were dilated so large they blotted out the dark blue shade of his eyes. I reared back before I could stop myself. He looked so demony, I half expected him to reach over and yank out my throat.
“I don’t know,” he said slowly. “I think you could be anything.”
How right he was.
CHAPTER 16
“There are others like you,” I said. A tiny white lie.
I didn’t know of anyone quite like Bram. But that didn’t make him any less one of us. There was no one like me, either, but that just made me the leader of this whole damn mess.
“Do you see the demons?” he asked.
“I—uhh—” Did. But if I told him why I didn’t anymore, he’d only try to kill me. “I’m what we call a DK, or demon killer.”
I was. That just wasn’t all I was.
Quickly I explained the federation and how we worked. “I think you should join us,” I said.
“I’m not much of a joiner anymore.”
“Since you left the priesthood?”
Bram’s gaze shifted away. “I didn’t exactly leave.”
“Thrown out?”
“No.”
“You’re AWOL?”
He gave his almost-smile. “I left, and I didn’t go back, but I don’t think they care. I’m sure they excommunicated me as soon as they realized I was gone.”
“Excommunicated? Why?”
“I—well—you see . . . there was this dream, and in it there was a man, but he wasn’t a man.”
“Sounds familiar.”
“He was a priest.”
Uh-oh.
“A monsignor to be exact.”
“What did he do?”
Bram’s eyes met mine. “Terrible things.”
“What did you do?”
“Went to the bishop, but I couldn’t explain why I knew what I knew.”
I’d gotten myself into all sorts of trouble as a kid by telling people what I’d “seen” when I’d touched them. Eventually, I’d stopped sharing—until Ruthie had convinced me that my curse was in fact a gift from God.
“Because you couldn’t explain,” I said, “they didn’t believe.”
“But I kept dreaming, and the more time that passed, the worse the dreams became. So I—” He took a deep breath, then blurted, “—stabbed him.”
I liked his initiative.
“Let me guess,” I said. “He didn’t die.”
“Stabbing wasn’t the way to kill him.”
“How did you find out what was?” I couldn’t believe that his dreams weren’t clueing him in. Seemed a little half-assed to me. But so much did.
“He was in pain, a little out of it. Said he’d done nothing but what an incubus had to do to survive.”
“Moron,” I muttered.
“He thought I was powerless. That I wouldn’t have the guts to try again.”
“But you weren’t powerless, and you did have the guts.”
“I had his eventually.”
My gaze narrowed. An incubus was a sex demon. They came in the night; they seemed like a dream. They had sex with their victims, sucking energy from them during the act like a vampire sucked blood, leaving the sufferers pale and dazed. Eventually they would die, and no one would ever know why.
Historically, an incubus was a man who preyed on women, while a succubus was a woman who preyed on men, but they could also be bisexual if they chose. I was pretty certain most chose. When dealing with a demon that ingested sex like canapés, I had a hard time believing they’d be bound by anything as minor as sexuality.
“What did the trick?” I asked.
“Evisceration.”
“Messy.”
Bram smiled for the first time I’d ever seen. “Very.”
>
“How’d you figure out the best way to kill one?”
“I didn’t spend half my life in a seminary without learning a thing or two about demons, and what I didn’t know off the top of my head, I knew how to find out.”
“In a copy of Incubi for Dummies?”
He gave a half laugh, which made me like him all the more. Some people found me . . . not funny.
“You’d be surprised what you can discover in the dusty corners of a seminary library.”
“So you were excommunicated for rearranging the insides of your monsignor on the outside?”
“No.”
“What the hell else did you do?”
“Nothing.” He lifted one shoulder then lowered it. “There.”
“You better explain.”
“There wasn’t a body.” He clapped his hands, then his fingers made the gesture of rain while he whispered, “Whoosh.”
“Ashes. Which means they had nothing on you.”
“Except I’d accused the man of horrible things, then I’d stabbed him, and then he disappeared.”
“And then?”
“I ran.”
“Good choice.”
“They aren’t looking for me. I’d be an embarrassment. The priest who thought he saw a demon.”
“You did see a demon. How could the church refuse to believe that? Aren’t they in the anti-demon business?”
“They were. But hellish fiends are something from the Middle Ages. Certainly there’s evil. We can’t not concede that when it’s in our face all the time, but demons?” He shook his head. “Quite a stretch. Besides, what were they going to do? Pray the Nephilim away?”
“I don’t think that works.”
“It doesn’t. The priests I knew were gentle men of charity and hope. They couldn’t kill things.”
“So what happened to you?”
“I witnessed the truth. Over and over and over again until I couldn’t not kill them.”
The more I talked to this guy, the more I wondered just how random his showing up to save my ass had been. I’d come to understand in the last few months that random just wasn’t what it used to be.
“You saw the draugars in a dream?” He nodded. “Did you see me?”
“No. I saw the cemetery and the Vikings. They were attacking a really big, colorful bird that shot fire from its wings.” He frowned. “You see anything like that?”
I forced myself not to scratch the very itchy tattoo at my nape. “Not me.”
“First I thought it was an actual nightmare. I have those sometimes. But the same dream kept returning night after night, and when that happens, I have to act or never find a moment’s peace.” He tilted his head. “I wonder what that weird bird was.”
“Maybe the girl’s name was Robin.”
“This bird wasn’t a robin. More like a—” He glanced at the sun. “Thunderbird. That would make sense around here.”
“Because?”
“The Sioux say the thunderbird is huge and many-colored with the power of the storm and command of the rain. The flap of their wings is the thunder; the breeze created by the beat brings together the clouds, and when the thunderbird blinks the flash of its eyes is the lightning.”
Sounded pretty phoenix-y to me, but most cultures had their own version of every legend.
“In the old days the thunderbirds killed monsters,” Bram continued.
“Which means they weren’t one.”
“Anything can become a monster if it chooses to be.”
Bram reminded me of Xander Whitelaw, who’d been a prophecy professor at an Indiana Bible college. Intelligent, knowledgeable, yet innocent in so many ways, nevertheless I’d sent him looking for clues about both the Key of Solomon and the Book of Samyaza. Big mistake.
He’d found the location of the key. Unfortunately, the Nephilim had found him. I still had nightmares.
The loss of Xander had been a big one. He’d known a lot and what he hadn’t known, he’d been able to discover.
My gaze took in Bram’s hard hands, bulging biceps, and collection of crosses. I didn’t think he’d be killed as easily as Xander.
“You’re sure you don’t want to join the federation?” I asked.
“I’m sure.”
I wasn’t willing to give up that easily. “How’d you like to freelance?”
He lifted a brow. “I’m listening.”
“Ever heard of the Key of Solomon?”
“I was a priest,” he said.
Which I took to mean yes.
“I need it.”
“There are copies all over the place.”
“The original.”
“That, there’s only one of.”
“And the Book of Samyaza.”
Now his brows tilted downward as he frowned. “It’s real?”
“Wanna find out?”
Slowly, a half smile appeared. “Actually, yeah.” He nodded thoughtfully and repeated, “Yeah. I still have connections.”
“One more thing.”
I reached for his arm, but he pulled back. Instead of being hurt, I was glad. The less he trusted, the better. I didn’t want to walk into a room someday and find pieces of him all over the place.
“If the Nephilim know you’re searching for it—”
“They’ll kill me. They try that all the time.”
“I was going to say ‘they’ll follow you.’ If you find it, they’ll kill you.”
“Then they’ll take it and march all over the earth in glory,” he finished.
“I’d hate to see either of those things happen.”
“You and me both.”
I gave him my cell phone number and e-mail address. He did the same.
“Where you headed?” I asked.
“Where are you?” he countered.
I decided not to share. Bram might try to burn me for a witch if he heard I was raising ghosts.
“I’m not sure,” I said.
“Me either.”
We were both lying, and we both knew it. Welcome to my world—trust no one who hasn’t proved trustworthy, and sometimes not even them. It was a sad, bad, lonely way to live.
I glanced at the sky. The sun was falling rapidly. There was no way I’d be able to find the Old One today. “You know of any motels nearby?”
“I don’t stay in motels.”
I lowered my gaze. “Ever?”
“Sometimes I wake myself screaming. Had the cops called a few times. Better to sleep in the van.”
Talk about sad, bad, and lonely. Poor guy. His life had not been easy. A weaker man would have gone stark, raving loony. But Bram had the confidence to believe in his dreams and the strength to do something about them. We needed more like him. The problem was finding them.
I might now possess Sawyer’s talent for detecting candidates. What I didn’t have was the time to troll the population waiting for a ripple.
Ruthie had used the social services system to discover kids turned out of foster homes again and again, often for very strange reasons. Weird stuff happened around breeds all the time—usually deadly, bloody, scary stuff.
But Ruthie was gone and the federation didn’t have the manpower to spare a member to run the group home that had been the salvation of so many. At Ruthie’s everyone was loved no matter what. Hers was the first place I’d ever felt like a girl and not a freak.
I stood, running my fingers over the dent in the hood. I wished I knew more about magic. I could probably fix that with a twitch of my nose. Turning, I stared at the empty road.
“You are definitely something more than human,” I said.
CHAPTER 17
Before getting into the Impala, I used one of the gallon jugs of water in the trunk to sponge off the draugar blood. I couldn’t drive around like this; I especially couldn’t drive into a small western town and check in for the night looking as if I’d spent the day as an extra in the latest Quentin Tarantino movie.
After removing my ruined lime-g
reen tank top and bra, I changed into fresh ones—this time in power red. Maybe the shade would wake me up.
I bought shirts, bras, and underwear by the bagful at Wal-Mart. They rarely lasted long enough to wear out. I’d learned quickly to purchase dark-colored jeans that could disguise myriad questionable body fluids. I’d also bought black sneakers after my white pair had first become pink when I washed them, and then fallen apart when I bleached them.
I’d had high hopes for finding a motel in Osage, the next town up the road, but it turned out to have a population between two and three hundred and little use for a motel. Luckily I saw the sign for a family-owned establishment near Upton that promised an Internet connection and a free breakfast.
I paid cash. Too many Nephilim knew me by name. The federation did have a wide network in place—members in every walk of life and level of business and government—that could erase all trace of my transaction with a single phone call on my part. But they had better things to do with their time and talents. Besides, the Nephilim had a similar network. One never knew who might see the info first, or even intercept a phone call.
Though I was the leader of the light, I wasn’t exactly sure how many members the federation had, who they were, or even what all they did. Ruthie had died too suddenly to tell me much of anything, and I’d been a little busy sticking my finger in the dike of the Apocalypse to take an administrative crash course.
But Ruthie had trained her people well—except for me—and they were used to working alone. They continued to do so with no input or management on my part. As a result, the federation had kept chugging along pretty smoothly, considering.
The motel clerk appeared as if he’d just come in from a three-week fly-fishing excursion. His face and arms were fried the shade of an overripe strawberry. He had to have a hundred mosquito bites. He still smelled of fish, and I could swear there were a few entrails hanging off his seed cap.
He couldn’t stop staring at me. I wondered if I was the first non-Caucasian to walk through his door this year.
“Miss,” he began.
“I’m Egyptian,” I said in an attempt to stave off the usual questions about my nationality. Since I got them in Milwaukee—a town where around forty percent of the population was African American—I was certain I’d get them here.
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