Doomsday Can Wait

by Lori Handeland

  The lights went out with a tinny thunk, one by one, and darkness crept over the desert like a thief. In the distance coyotes howled, and the hair on my arms tingled.

  I inched closer, my gaze searching for movement. Where was Jimmy? Where was Summer? Hell, where was anyone?

  A light came on in one of the tents. Figures moved beyond the canvas. I was drawn forward, through the air, across the earth and into the tent.

  Jimmy was tied to a chair with golden chains. The Gypsies definitely knew what they were doing. Silver does nothing to a dhampir, but gold is something else. It wouldn’t kill him, but it would certainly sting. Already his wrists and ankles had red, raw ridges. They’d heal, but much slower than wounds made by anything else.

  I’d wondered if his vampire nature would overcome the sensitivity to gold. The metal certainly hadn’t bothered the strega. But considering Jimmy’s reaction to the chains, gold still remained his Kryptonite.

  The tent was full of what I assumed were Gypsies. Dark skin and hair, rough hands, they wore jeans, white shirts, a few had hoops in their ears, but other than that, they could be anyone.

  “You dare to come here, to touch our women?” one of the men shouted, then backhanded Jimmy across the mouth.

  His lip split, blood ran down his chin, his tongue flicked out to taste, and his fangs flashed. He hissed at them—oh, he was playing this to the hilt—and his eyes blazed red at the center. He lunged, struggling against his bonds, the pressure of the golden chains against his skin causing smoke to rise.

  The man who’d shouted held out his hand and one of the others slapped a gun into it.

  “Bullets?” he asked.

  “Gold.”

  The man smiled. “This will hurt,” he said, and shot Jimmy in the chest.

  I screamed. No one heard me. I wasn’t really there. I could do nothing but watch. I’d never felt so helpless in all my life.

  This was the end. I’d never see him again, never touch him, never work through all the issues I had with him. But even worse than that, he’d be removed from my arsenal of Doomsday weaponry. I’d lost DKs right and left, but losing Jimmy would be fatal for our cause.

  All of this went through my head in a millisecond. The bullet plowed into Jimmy’s heart; his head lolled; he died with a smile on his face.

  The Gypsy’s finger tightened on the trigger again and just as suddenly released before firing that second fatal shot. Something was happening. Every guy in the place stilled as sparkly dust rained down.

  Summer walked in, took the gun from the man’s hand and tossed it into a nearby bucket of water. There were several in the corner; I’m not sure why. Perhaps one of the Gypsies had planned to water the show animals after they ended the dhampir. All in a day’s work.

  “About time,” I murmured. Where had she been?

  Although now that I thought about it, today was still Friday. So much had happened, I figured we’d moved on to Saturday or Sunday a few days ago. Summer still should have gotten there more quickly, but maybe she’d had to buck a headwind.

  With her head.

  The fairy went directly to Jimmy, patted his face. smoothed back his hair in a gesture that made my stomach dance with an emotion I didn’t want to examine too closely. She was there; she would save him, and I needed to be grateful.

  The golden chains were locked. I expected her to demand the key, or have one of the Gypsies release him. Instead, she hit them with fairy dust, and they fell to the dirt floor with a hollow thud. I was liking that dust more and more as time went on.

  Jimmy was still unconscious. His split lip had healed, but his black T-shirt was slick with blood.

  Summer patted his face. “Jimmy?”

  He didn’t react. She slapped him, hard. “Right now, dammit!”

  Her voice shook. She was pissed.

  When he still didn’t wake up, she snatched one of the buckets and poured water over his head. He inhaled a bit and woke up choking.

  One hand went to his chest, which must have hurt like a bitch. He stared at his bloodied palm, then glanced up at Summer. His mouth tightened, and he came out of the chair with a roar of fury, fangs flashing. She flicked him a handful of fairy dust, and he went as still as the Gypsies.

  How could she do that? Her magic shouldn’t work on us.

  She took his hand and led him toward the tent flap. Jimmy went with her like a child. They reached the exit and she turned back, giving the Gypsies a second coat, before she looked up and straight into my eyes.

  No one had ever seen me watching them before, but Summer wasn’t like anyone else.

  She said a few words that I thought were Gaelic and together they walked from the tent.

  I hurried after, but once outside the desert darkness closed in. No moon, just stars, the only light from the tent and the distant town of Red Rock. No movement anywhere that I could see.

  Jimmy and Summer had disappeared.

  CHAPTER 18

  The buzzing of my cell phone tumbled me out of the visions. I reached for it with my free hand, the other still over my chest. I needed to return to New Mexico. I had to figure out where they’d gone.

  “Hello?”

  “Don’t come after us.”

  “Summer?”

  “He needs to be alone. I can help him.”

  “If you’re going to help him then he won’t be alone,” I pointed out.

  “I’ve blocked you.”

  I sat up. “And how can you do that? For that matter, how did you know I was there?”

  “I’m a fairy,” she said, as if that explained everything.

  “Big fucking hairy deal.” I was so articulate when I was furious. “How did you zap Jimmy? What happened to your magic not working on DKs and seers?”

  “It isn’t that my magic doesn’t work on you, it doesn’t work on those on errands of mercy.”

  “So?”

  “I doubt Jimmy recalls what mercy means at the moment.”

  She was right, but I still didn’t like it.

  “The reason I sent you was because I knew—” I stopped, not wanting to say it, but Summer had no problem.

  “You knew I’d think of him first. That I’d protect him, even from you.”

  “Things have changed,” I said. “The woman of smoke is the leader of the darkness.”

  “She can’t be. You’re still alive and annoying.”

  I almost laughed. If I hadn’t been so panicked about the situation, I might have. Quickly I told her what Carla had told me.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Nothing’s changed.”

  “Everything’s changed. She’s trying to open the gates of hell and release the Grigori.”

  “That’s her job.”

  “And it’s my job to kill her before she does it.” If I actually killed the leader of the darkness rather than one of her minions, everything should go back to normal. Or as normal as it got.

  “I thought we’d have more time to replenish the federation,” I continued. “More time for Jimmy to get his shit together, but we don’t. Bring Jimmy and meet me at Sawyer’s; we’ll figure this out.”

  “No,” she said. “Jimmy isn’t ready. He has to find himself again before he can give himself to the cause.”

  “There won’t be a cause if he doesn’t come back!”

  “You told me to do anything,” she murmured.

  “Now I’m telling you to bring him in.”

  “I won’t,” Summer said. “I can’t.”

  “I’m going to kill you,” I muttered.

  “You’re going to try.” She didn’t sound worried. She didn’t need to be. To kill her, first I’d have to find her.

  “I’ll do what I can as quickly as I can,” she continued, and I knew that I’d lost. I think I’d known I was going to lose from the beginning.

  “Wait,” I said desperately, before she hung up. “You know a few DKs, so does Jimmy.”

  “Yes,” she agreed warily.

  “Get in touc
h with them. I need one to watch Megan Murphy in Milwaukee.” I told her about the seer’s death on my doorstep, and how I feared that others might come and experience the same fate.

  “I’ll send someone,” Summer agreed. “He can take out any lurking Nephilim and inform any seers who show up that they should disappear again.”

  “Great. If you get in touch with anyone else, have them tell everyone they know and so on.”

  “A supernatural phone chain,” Summer said.

  “Right. Maybe I can get things figured out and settled down and we could all have a … a conference call or something.”

  Summer snorted. “Sure. That’ll happen.”

  “You think Jimmy might be better in a week or so?”

  I heard a vicious snarl from her end of the phone, and Summer sighed. “I wouldn’t count on it.”

  ———

  I tried again to find them, but I got nowhere, saw nothing. Then I tried to contact Ruthie, but the connection was pretty one-sided.

  She came to me when the Nephilim did, or when she had something to say. Obviously the situation with Jimmy didn’t warrant a visit. Or maybe she didn’t know about it. Maybe Summer had blocked her, too.

  I glanced at the clock. I’d been messing around with Summer and Jimmy and my vision for close to two hours. Where in hell was Sawyer?

  I’d taken a room at the back of the hotel so he could slip in without notice if he were still on four feet instead of two. Carla had seemed pretty certain whatever she planned to do would work, but I’d learned long ago never to count my chickens. Especially around a wolf.

  I heard voices outside. Considering the time, I figured I’d better investigate. Considering the anger I heard in them, I’d better investigate fast.

  I opened the door. Sawyer and his mother stood in the parking lot.

  He wore athletic shorts and nothing else. I doubted Carla had had much on hand to lend him. His skin glistened beneath the harsh overhead lights.

  If the situation had been less dire, I might have paused to admire the view. No matter how I felt about Sawyer, he was a beautiful man. It seemed a crime to have marked that body with so many tattoos. But beneath the ink, the skin was supple, and the muscles rippled and danced.

  Beyond the spray of electric lights clouds roiled; the wind kicked up and tossed trash across the parking lot. Sawyer’s long, black hair twisted in the breeze, as did his mother’s.

  “Who did this?” Her voice deceptively quiet, her face was far too still. Behind her, lightning crashed into the ground; the earth shook and the dry grass began to burn.

  “Stop that,” Sawyer ordered, his voice equally calm. A flick of his wrist and rain tumbled down, putting out the fire. As soon as the flames died, the rain did, too.

  “You don’t command me, boy. I command you.”

  “Not for a very long time.”

  I stood frozen in the doorway. Fascination and fear held me captive. I wanted to hear what they said to each other, but I didn’t want them to know that I was listening. I especially didn’t want her to look over Sawyer’s shoulder and see me. I wore the turquoise, I should be safe, but there were hundreds of people in this hotel, and she’d love to kill every one of them.

  The woman of smoke stepped closer to her son. Sawyer tensed, but he didn’t move back. When dealing with vicious animals, any show of weakness was an open invitation to get your throat torn out.

  “You think you’re so powerful?”

  She drew a fingernail down his face. I half expected a gash to open and blood to pour out. Sawyer didn’t flinch. God, he was good.

  “You think you can take me?” she whispered.

  He didn’t answer. She continued to slide her fingernail down his neck, across his chest. I frowned. The way she was staring at him made my skin crawl, as if she wanted to—

  The Naye’i leaned forward and licked Sawyer’s collarbone, then pressed her face to his neck and breathed in as she ran her palms down his back, her fingers drifting beneath the hem of his shorts to caress the tight curve of his ass. Yuck!

  “Join with me.” She raised her head, took his lip in her teeth and tugged, then kissed him full on the mouth. It seemed like there was a lot of tongue. I fought not to gag.

  When she removed her lips from his, she stayed so close their noses were only a wisp away. “I’ll give you her,” she whispered.

  I stiffened as a dizzying sense of deja vu washed over me. The Strega had promised me to Jimmy, although in the end he’d planned to have me for himself. Actually they’d planned to have me together.

  “Who said I want her?” Sawyer asked.

  Yeah, I thought. Who said?

  The woman of smoke laughed, and the wind answered. I eyed the burgeoning storm warily. The way she was whipping up the elements, we were due for a tornado any second.

  “You know the darkness calls to you.” The Naye’i trailed her mouth along his jaw as she whispered temptation. “You want to go there. With me.”

  His shoulders tensed; his hands clenched. Should I go to him now? Or would that only make things worse?

  “The light is swallowed by the dark,” she whispered. “Only pain and death wait for you there.”

  “That’s not what the prophecies say.”

  “Their prophecies. Not ours.”

  Theirs? Ours? What was she talking about?

  “We’re good together.” Her hand slid around to the front of his shorts.

  I took a step forward. Sawyer made a staying motion, palm out, in my direction. Hell, he’d known I was here the whole time. Did she?

  “You know that you want it,” she murmured.

  What did she mean by “it”? The world? The power? Me?

  Or her?

  The way she was touching him, murmuring, rubbing, made me sick. The way Sawyer just stood there and let her wasn’t helping.

  No wonder he was so screwed up. No wonder sex for him was a job, a weapon, a blip on the radar of his life.

  Oh, he was good at it, but when it was over he stood up and walked away as if nothing had ever happened. For Sawyer, sex was a means to an end. He used it to unblock someone’s powers, to get what he wanted or what the federation paid him to get. And now I understood why.

  “I know what I don’t want,” he said in that too calm voice.

  The sky swirled with wind and rain. The Naye’i’s face was as white as the lights shining above, her eyes black pools, her mouth a slash of blood-red lips.

  “You think I went through childbirth for nothing?” she shouted.

  Lightning sizzled, striking the pavement all around her. Her hair stood straight up, making her appear not only crazed but electrocuted.

  “I did it for you,” she roared, her voice a bestial growl.

  “Thank you,” Sawyer said mildly.

  She screamed and the earth shook. I half expected a crevice to open and swallow them both. But that would be too easy. And did I really want to lose Sawyer, even if it meant losing her, too?

  I just didn’t know.

  “I will kill her slowly. I’ll eat her intestines while you watch. I’ll make her beg to die. I’ll make her hate you.”

  “She already does.”

  “Then why do you protect her? Why did you mark her as yours?”

  I leaned forward, straining my ears, but he didn’t answer.

  Without warning, the Naye’i threw out her arm, pointing in my direction. Fire shot from her fingertips. I had no time to duck, not that ducking would have done one damn bit of good.

  However, the flames stopped several feet from me, roaring and dancing, flaring upward, then rolling back down as if turned away by an invisible firewall.

  I lifted my hand to the turquoise; the stone was hot to the touch. As my fingers curled around it, the Naye’i shrieked again and disappeared in a column of smoke. The instant she did, the flames died, along with the storm.

  CHAPTER 19

  Sawyer walked across the parking lot, his skin golden even beneath the si
lver flare of the lights, his gait as smooth as a panther’s. We were really going to have to find him some clothes: he’d stop traffic like this.

  I couldn’t help it, my gaze dropped to his crotch to see if he was aroused.

  He wasn’t. Thank God.

  I knew nothing about incest. The very word made me wince. The thought made me nauseous. But I had to think that the perversion had a permanent effect on the psyche of the victim. Even if the victim, and the victor, weren’t entirely human.

  Sawyer seemed no worse for the encounter. The same couldn’t be said of me. I was shaking.

  He herded me inside, shut and locked the door, then threw out his arms, threw back his head, and sang a Navajo chant to the ceiling. Watching him in the half-light, nearly naked, tattoos dancing, his long, dark hair cascading past his shoulders, I wanted him, too. And that I did disgusted me. He’d been preyed on enough.

  Seeing Sawyer as a victim disturbed me. He’d always been the bane of my life. I’d feared him. I’d hated him, as he’d said. But there’d been something between us from the first moment we’d met. I hadn’t understood at fifteen what that something was; I’d only known that it, that he, was dangerous.

  He stopped chanting, lowered his arms, and then his head, though he didn’t look at me, continued to face away from me. “That should keep her out for a while,” he murmured.

  I glanced at the door. “She’s coming back?”

  “What do you think?” Sawyer took a breath, then released it.

  I found myself fascinated by the play of muscles beneath his skin, the inked images of the shark on his shoulder and the hawk at the small of his back. The crocodile on his forearm—

  The image made me pause. It was new, except I’d seen it before.

  In his dreams.

  I wondered momentarily why he’d gotten it, then remembered what I’d felt as my fingers brushed the image—strength in my jaws, the furious urge to chase and to kill, the power over all that swam in the waters. Every being etched into Sawyer’s skin was a beast of prey. Really, what good would it do to shape-shift into a lamb?