I’d been so confused. I’d believed that Jimmy was still inside the thing that wore his skin, that if I could get him to remember what we’d had, I might save him. I’d been a fool.
“When I said you didn’t know all the facts I wasn’t talking about Manhattan,” Summer said.
“Then what—” My fingers clenched on the steering wheel. I did not want to have this conversation.
“Didn’t you ever wonder why he’d be so stupid as to sleep with me when he knew damn well you’d see it the next time you touched him?”
“I figured he was a man.” I let my gaze sweep from the tip of her stupid white hat to the toes of her just-scuffed-enough boots. “He couldn’t keep it in his pants any more than the next guy if you paid him.”
“You don’t have a very high opinion of men.”
“Should I?” Every man I’d ever trusted had betrayed me.
She sighed. “You should think a little longer about Jimmy. He isn’t as big of an idiot as he seems.”
“That would be impossible,” I muttered. If he were that big of an idiot, he wouldn’t be able to walk and talk at the same time.
I continued to drive up the mountain, but I started to think, and I didn’t like where my thoughts took me.
Summer was right—how I hated to admit that—Jimmy had known what I could do, so it followed that he knew I would see him with Summer.
“You’re saying he wanted to end things?” I asked. “But he was too big of a weenie to face me, so he …” I made a vague gesture in the direction of Summer’s breasts.
“For someone with a standing reservation on the moron train, you throw the word around pretty easily at others.”
I gaped. That was something I would say.
“If you think about it with your head instead of your childish heart,” Summer said, “you’ll see the truth.” Her eyes lifted. “We’re here.”
I followed her gaze. Above us on the next curve of the highway, the large, black half circle of a cave loomed. Dotting the incline around it were no less than a dozen others. I didn’t have time to worry about what Jimmy had done so many years ago. I had to deal with what he’d done lately.
I wheeled the car around the final bend, pulling it off the road and onto a gravel area carved out for breakdowns. We stepped out, glanced up, sighed.
“You take the ones on that side.” I pointed with my left hand. “I’ll take the ones on this side. Whoever finds him first—” I stopped, uncertain where to go with that.
“Wins?” Summer murmured, and floated upward without benefit of wings.
CHAPTER 6
I had to ascend the old-fashioned way—shuffling across the rock-strewn dirt, yanking myself over steep areas using exposed tree roots, sliding downward several feet here and there, then cursing Jimmy Sanducci, Summer, the Nephilim, and anything and anyone else I could think of.
Luckily I had superior strength and speed, thanks to Jimmy, and the cuts and scrapes I received healed almost immediately, thanks to him, too. Still, I would have preferred to fly. That had looked liked fun.
But I was sticking to my guns at least figuratively and making do with the powers I already possessed for as long as I could. I was certain that sooner rather than later, I was going to need more magic than I had to fight the Nephilim.
I’d left my Glock in the car and brought only the knife. Ricochets, rock chips, not to mention lack of adequate lighting, made shooting a firearm in a cave a tad ill-advised.
Hauling myself over a dirt embankment, I contemplated a dark, nasty cave. If I hadn’t known better I’d think dusk was falling, but it was still too early.
I glanced to the west and cursed some more—just what I needed to make this day complete. Huge, indigo clouds of thunder rolled across the horizon. My luck, the storm would turn into a tornado.
Inside the cave I pulled out the trusty flashlight that had also been in my duffel, and scouted every creepy corner. No sign of Jimmy. It would have been too simple for him to be lurking in the first place I searched.
I continued upward, listening with one ear for Summer and with the other for a swish of wind. I remembered reading somewhere about storms in the mountains making the roads impassable. Wouldn’t it just be special to get stuck up here all night with Jimmy the vampire on a rampage?
I talked big, thought big about killing him, but when push came to shove, it wasn’t going to be easy—neither emotionally nor physically. Jimmy was dangerous. He had been even before he’d gone vamp.
Jimmy’s real job—or perhaps it was his cover and the demon killing was his real job, hard to say—was portrait photographer to the stars. He traveled the world; he was in high demand. He’d always had the best eye for color, light, people, and it had taken him places.
But once he’d been a street kid like me, handy with a knife—I stroked the hilt of the silver blade—and he’d had a hair trigger of a temper. No one had crossed Sanducci back then; if they had, they’d been very, very sorry.
At the fourth cave, I hit pay dirt. At first I thought it was another empty, damp hole. But this one kept going; it was slightly bigger than all the others.
The air became cooler; I could smell water, hear a trickle somewhere in the distance. The narrow, rock walls widened until they opened into a cavern.
Something squeaked. Bats or mice. Either one didn’t work for me. I swished the flashlight around and was turning to leave when my brain registered what I’d revealed in the far corner.
Feet clad in shoes, legs covered by blue jeans. Could be anyone, but it wasn’t. I’d know the scent of Jimmy Sanducci anywhere.
Even when his scent was shrouded by dirt, water, moss, and other less pleasant odors, I could smell the last hint of cinnamon and soap.
Slowly I turned, casting the round yellow light upward. He was a mess.
The T-shirt had once been white but was now brownish gray and hung in tatters. His skin, always tan, even in the longest, coldest of winters, glistened; the ripples of his belly and the supple curves of his biceps and pecs shone lusciously in the light.
His dark eyes were closed; he muttered in a tense and uneasy sleep. Dark hair, tangled with sweat and dirt, fell across his just short of pretty face.
If I’d needed any more evidence that Jimmy was not himself, the dirt would have done it. From the moment he’d arrived at Ruthie’s, he’d taken two or three showers a day. He always smelled better than anyone I knew. I figured his obsession with soap stemmed from so many years on the streets without it.
There were worse compulsions. Sucking blood, for instance.
I inched my knife from the scabbard at my waist, clutching the hilt so tightly my fingers ached. I crept forward, uncertain what I meant to do. I couldn’t kill him while he slept, although if I needed to kill him that was probably my best bet. I just wasn’t sure …
It would be so much easier if he opened those eyes to reveal a spark of red in their dark depths, then smiled with a mouthful of fangs and tried to kill me.
“Jimmy.” I could barely hear myself speak, my voice drowned out by my own thundering heart.
Or maybe that was just thunder. The ground seemed to rumble with it.
“Jimmy,” I tried again. This time I managed some volume to the word. Again it was drowned out but not by thunder.
The wind I’d expected rolled through the cave, stirring my hair as Ruthie’s voice murmured, Black Howler.
I faced the entrance, far away and very small. Something moved into the gray fading light, making it flicker down the tunnel like a strobe.
From the tone and the volume of Ruthie’s whisper I deduced the howler was a Nephilim and not a breed. Usually I could tell just by the number of bodies lying around. Nephilim like to kill.
However, certain breeds did, too. Some fought for us, some for them, and still others had yet to be swayed to either side. Same goes for the fairies.
I glanced at Jimmy. He continued to twitch and mutter, but he didn’t wake up. I caught a few words.
“No … Can’t.. . Won’t… Thirsty.” And then, “Sorry, Lizzy.”
Hell.
He was the only one who called me that, and when he did, I knew it was Jimmy. When he’d been controlled by his freak show of a father, he’d called me “Elizabeth.” I’d hated it almost as much as when he sometimes called me “baby.”
The thing in the doorway moved forward. I clutched my knife tighter and went to meet it.
Big and shaggy, with a huge rack branching out from its bearlike head, this was quite possibly the ugliest Nephilim I’d yet to see. I wondered idly where the human part of it lay hidden, until I got close enough and saw that the long black hair shrouded a nose that would have been at home in the middle of anyone’s face.
I kept my gaze averted, flicking glances at it out of the corner of my eye. I couldn’t risk dropping dead, though I was starting to wonder if that power was a myth. If this beast had been long in the mountains, corpses would have been strewn all over the place.
Nevertheless, I couldn’t take the chance that I’d be downed; I wouldn’t let the howler walk over my inert body and make his way to Jimmy. I might have to kill Sanducci later, but there was no way I was going to let a Nephilim do it.
According to Dr. Gray, the way to kill a howler was to separate the head from the body. Too bad I’d forgotten my samurai sword as well as my axe. I wasn’t sure how I was going to kill this thing, but I had to try.
The beast made me nervous the way it kept arching its neck, trying to peer around me and making a noise that sounded suspiciously like mmmm. Perhaps dhampir was a howler delicacy. What did I know?
Suddenly the thing threw back its head, spread out its arms, and released a horrific, inhuman howl. The sound bounced off the cave walls, pounding at my eardrums until I-wanted to cover them with my hands. I was paralyzed by it, so when the howler stepped forward and tried to bitch-slap me, I barely managed to duck.
Off balance, I fell to my knees. My ears rang from the lasting echo of the call, but I dipped my shoulder and rolled, even as it swiped at my head with razorlike claws. A whiff of air skated past my cheek.
I gained my feet, spun away from another swipe, then back-flipped to avoid the bear hug, and clipped it on the chin with my heel. I held on to my knife, but I lost the flashlight. It didn’t really matter since we were now close enough to the entrance to be illuminated by the fading daylight and the flashes of lightning from the approaching storm.
Where the hell was Summer? She had to have checked her half of the caves by now. She’d no doubt flitted back to the Impala to wait for me. The way things were going she’d be waiting into eternity.
How long before she came looking for me? Would she be in time? Would she be of any use if she was?
I couldn’t depend on her, couldn’t depend on anyone but myself. What else was new?
The howler lumbered after me, took a ponderous swing. I ducked, and when I came up, I stuck him with my silver knife.
He roared that horrific combination of howl and bugle—wolf and elk—that made my ears ache, but he didn’t burst into ash. I hadn’t figured he would. He wasn’t a shape-shifter, so silver wouldn’t kill him. I was just buying time.
I tried to yank my knife out, maybe stick him again if I could, but it was buried to the hilt. My fingers, slick with blood, slipped, and I ended up leaving the weapon in the howler’s chest.
I was down to my speed, my strength, arid my wits.
“This oughta go well,” I murmured.
My voice infuriated the Nephilim. He brayed that dreadful sound again, and the slight paralyzation that followed the near-bursting of my eardrums allowed him to step in close.
This time when he bitch-slapped me, I flew. As my back hit the rock face, I caught a flash of movement from the rear of the cave.
I slid to the ground, blinked hard to clear away the stars in time to see Jimmy shove the howler in the chest. The beast fell back several paces. Jimmy’s eyes blazed—just as I’d imagined they might—red at the center. Fangs flashed. He snarled like a rabid animal, and I tensed, expecting him to spring forward and sink those sparkly whites into the Nephilim’s neck.
Instead, he placed one hand on the howler’s head, the other on its shoulder, and yanked the beast in two like the wishbone on a chicken.
CHAPTER 7
Blood sprayed everywhere, turning the dirt floor black, my white shoes red, speckling my shirt and my face.
Jimmy dropped the howler’s head, and it landed on the ground with a sickening thud, bouncing a few feet before stopping with the human nose pointing skyward through the overgrown, bestial dark hair. The body stayed upright for several seconds, still pumping blood toward the ceiling in a bright crimson stream.
Why hadn’t I thought of that? I’d been stuck on weapons—knives, swords, saws. I hadn’t learned yet to think outside the box when it came to killing.
Would my superior dhampir strength have been enough to tear a Nephilim in two? I doubted it. Most likely the superhuman powers of a vampire were necessary.
Covered in blood, Jimmy stared at the howler. Fists clenching and unclenching, he licked his lips.
All that blood. How could he resist?
My chest began to burn as I held my breath, waiting for him to lean over and put his mouth beneath the slowly dying stream like a child with the garden hose on a hot summer day.
I drew in a lungful of air, wincing at the pain in my ribs. They’d heal, probably in the next few minutes, but right now—
“Ouch.”
I should have kept my mouth shut. Jimmy’s head jerked in my direction. The red light at the center of his eyes had faded, his fangs retracted. He would have looked exactly like the boy I’d loved, if not for the blood all over his face.
His mouth formed the word Lizzy, then he held out his red-slicked hands and cringed. Before I could say or do anything, he ran, straight past me and into the depths of the cave in a blur of speed that my eyes could barely track.
I forced myself to stand, retrieve the flashlight, and follow him. In the distance something large hit a water surface. I followed the scent of rain to another, smaller cavern, which contained a pond.
In the distance, thunder rumbled. Water trickled down the rock face, making gentle, peaceful music, in direct contrast to the sight of Jimmy bobbing in the center, scrubbing frantically at the blood on his face, his neck, and his hands.
I really wanted to jump in, too, but with Jimmy channeling Lady Macbeth, I figured I’d better wait, so I took a seat on the edge.
Jimmy went under, then he stayed there so long I nearly went in and hauled him out. At last he burst above the surface, flinging droplets every which way.
“What are you doing here?” He faced the rock wall, rubbing at his skin, even though I didn’t see any more blood.
“What do you think?” I asked. “We’re in a war, Sanducci, and I’m a little short on soldiers.’”
“I won’t be any good to you.”
“You looked pretty good a few minutes ago. I’d say you’ve still got it.”
He shook his head, and his shoulders slumped. “I’ve been trying to beat the monster back. I thought I had it under control, then I saw that thing hit you and—”
“You saved me. What’s so wrong about that?”
“I wanted to drink its blood, Lizzy.”
“I know,” I said softly.
“I can never leave here while I want that, and I’m starting to think that I’ll never be able to stop wanting it.”
“Maybe Sawyer—” I began.
Jimmy spun around. “No.”
They never had gotten along. I’d never been sure why, though I had my theories.
“He knows things,” I said.
“If I let him mess with my head, I’ll end up crazier than I already am.”
“I don’t think he’d—”
“No, Lizzy.”
Since I didn’t know where Sawyer was anyway, I let it go.
Jimmy studied my face, then
as if someone had cued the sound effects, one loud, earthshaking burst of thunder rattled the earth. “You came here to kill me.”
I hesitated, then told him the truth. “Maybe. I don’t know.”
“I’ve been feeding on people.’”
“No one’s dead.” I couldn’t believe I was using Sum-mer’s argument.
And speaking of Summer, where was she? I didn’t have time to go on a fairy hunt right now. I had a very strong feeling that if I turned my back on Jimmy, he’d be gone.
“Yet,” he said, taking my side of the argument.
“You said you’d been trying to control the—” I paused, uncertain what to call the part of him the strega had awoken.
“Monster. Beast. Vampire. Thing. Say it!” His voice bounced off the walls of the cavern, full of both anger and pain.
“Fine,” I said. “How do you control your inner bloodsucker?”
“I don’t know. Being near people …” He shrugged, his wet shirt clinging to his wet body. “It’s too hard. I can hear your pulse, the blood streaming through your veins.” He put his hands over his ears, then let them slowly fall back into the water. “It’s deafening.”
“So you came here because it’s isolated?”
“Not isolated enough,” he muttered. “But yeah. I’d been here before, searched these caves.”
“For what?”
“The howler. Always bugged me that I never found him.”
“He found you this time.” Probably figured Jimmy was after him again and decided to end things once and for all.
Jimmy seemed calmer, so I emptied my pockets— cell phone, money, et cetera—then jumped into the pool, shoes and all. They were pretty much ruined anyway.
He tensed. “What are you doing?”
I didn’t answer, just ducked beneath the water and began to scrub at my face, neck, hair, as he had.
When I came up, Jimmy sat on the edge of the pool. “You shouldn’t have come after me,” he said. “I didn’t want you to see me like this.”
“I already have.”
He closed his eyes; his lips tightened. “How could you stand to be near me after what I did? How could you have—”
Doomsday Can Wait Page 5
