“This had better be so good, I’m going to have an orgasm from the joy of it,” Megan growled. In the background, I could hear water running.
I glanced at my watch and winced. Eight a.m. She was in the shower.
“Sorry,” I said. “You’re alive. Gotta go.”
“Hang up and die slowly,” she snapped.
Megan would make a great DK—if only she was half demon and not a mommy.
“Sorry,” I repeated. “Just cheeking in.”
“You think I wouldn’t have called if there was something to say?”
“Unless you couldn’t.”
“Ah, hence the comment ‘You’re alive.’”
“Bingo.”
“Nothing going on here out of the ordinary.” Something squeaked and the sound of water faded. “Except the new first-shift bartender is a total moron. I swear, if I didn’t know better, I’d say he was trying to screw up.”
I hadn’t realized how much I missed her. Now that I realized, I missed her even more.
“Sorry,” I said again.
“Say sorry one more time and I’ll—” She broke off.
“You’ll what?”
“No clue. Anything I threaten you with is going to be tame compared to what’s threatening you now. You kill the bitch goddess yet?”
“Still working on it.”
“Work harder.”
“Gee, why didn’t I think of that?”
Megan snickered. “Seriously, how’s it going?”
“I think we have a lead.”
“Who’s we?” Megan asked casually.
“Just the general we,” I lied, watching Sawyer through the station window.
He stood next to the Impala with the hot wind blowing through his long hair. The shorts, tank top, and sandals looked foolish, like putting a silly hat on a pit bull. No outer trappings could disguise the inner ferocity. Even when Sawyer was in this form, anyone with eyes could see that he was dangerous. I didn’t want Megan anywhere near him. I didn’t want her to even know his name.
“The royal plural?” she asked.
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“Don’t let all this leader-of-the-light stuff go to your head.”
“Believe me, I won’t.” That would be a good way to get my head torn off. “Have you noticed anyone hanging ground?”
“You mean the bodyguard you sent?”
I frowned. If he was any kind of bodyguard, she shouldn’t have been able to spot him.
“No.” Megan continued. “I haven’t.”
Sawyer saw me watching him and spread his hands impatiently. I guess I had been in here a while. I held up one finger. “I’m going to have to go.”
“Don’t worry about me,” she said.
“Yeah, like that’ll happen.”
“Same goes, Liz. Same goes.”
CHAPTER 23
I drove. Sawyer sat. Neither of us talked. He’d never been one for chitchat. I didn’t know what to say to him that wouldn’t end in an argument, or worse, with him staring at me with that confused expression that told me he had no idea what he’d done to make me angry.
At least I had no worries about disgusting STDs. Anything that Sawyer might have contracted we’d both be able to heal, and I had no doubt that Carla could do the same, or at least devise a potion.
Pregnancy was another issue. Obviously Nephilim I could procreate, hence the existence of Sawyer, Jimmy, I Carla, and every other breed I knew and didn’t. However, I’d been on the pill since long before Jimmy. I might have loved him, but I’d also seen enough girls in my situation ruin their lives all over again by believing that love would make everything all right and a baby would tie someone to them. What it did was make that someone run away all the faster.
I hadn’t even needed a baby to make Jimmy run like hell.
I frowned at the Indiana countryside. We’d bypassed Indianapolis an hour ago—a much larger city than I’d expected, with a good number of skyscrapers and the traffic patterns to match.
The terrain I drove through now was a welcome contrast. Rolling hills, fields bursting with crops, grassy knolls; we’d even seen several vineyards. I’d always thought Indiana was as flat as Illinois. I was wrong.
But there were also areas of obvious poverty. Trailers and trash and trailer trash. I’d be driving along admiring the scenery and suddenly there’d be a broken-down house, a graying aluminum single-wide, or a sad, pathetic excuse for a town.
As we drove slowly through the latter, at a reasonable speed to avoid a ticket-happy smoky just waiting for an out-of-state license plate to harass, Sawyer suddenly sat bolt upright, then stuck his head out the car window, letting the breeze smack him in the face. If he weren’t human, he’d look just like a dog. As it was, he looked just like a dog.
“What is it?” I asked, but he couldn’t hear me with his head out the window.
I reached for his left shoulder, steeling myself against the brush of cool ocean water and the distant scent of blood that would signal the shift to shark. I had to wonder how often Sawyer became a shark, living in the des-ert as he did.
Before my skin touched his, he fell back into the seat. “We have to stop.”
“When you gotta go, you gotta go,” I said.
“What?” His eyes were intent, but not on me. On something he’d seen, heard, smelled, perhaps felt. Out there.
“That way.” He pointed, voice urgent, desperate—two things Sawyer rarely was—so I followed that finger down an overgrown gravel road that led away from the town.
“What is it?” I asked.
He ignored me, staring out the windshield, practically vibrating with suppressed excitement, like a hound dog that had picked up a trail.
The trees were thick at this time of year; the branches hung low, swiping the sides of the Impala. The scent of summer—shimmering heat, fresh leaves, dandelions— raced in through the open windows. The tires crunched across the stones strewn in our path, seeming to accentuate our isolation.
It was in places like this that people died badly. Serial killers, perverts, rapists, men with hooks for arms— they all lived down overgrown roads in isolated small towns with inbred law enforcement agents who weren’t bright enough to write a parking ticket let alone deal with a psychopath.
I shook my head. My imagination was far too vivid sometimes. Unfortunately my life was often even more so. There was something down here that had Sawyer quivering, which only made me want to run away and never, ever come back.
“Stop,” Sawyer ordered, and I did. “Turn off the engine.”
I flicked the key. Silence settled over us like a misty blue fog.
Sawyer got out of the car, closing his door carefully so that it didn’t make a sound. He cast me a quick glance, and I did the same.
He jerked his head to the right, beckoned me once, then took off through the overgrowth, crouching low to avoid both tree branches and easy detection. I had little choice but to follow.
Well, I had a choice; I could stay with the car. Except that would only allow whatever was out there to catch me alone.
Wasn’t going to happen.
In seconds I clung to Sawyer’s heels as, head down, he made a beeline for whatever or whomever he’d found.
Ahead, the brush thinned, and I caught a glimpse of a ramshackle cabin surrounded by a scrabbly bit of yard. Sawyer stopped so fast that if I’d been only human, I would have plowed right into him. As it was, my barely clad breasts brushed his scantily clothed back. He didn’t seem to notice.
I opened my mouth to ask where, when, who, how— something—and he held up a hand. Into the continued silence tumbled voices.
“You’re gonna be sorry you ever came here, boy.”
“Yeah, sorry.”
“Don’t know who you think you are just settin’ yourself up in this house ‘tain’t yours.”
Though the words were childish, the voices were those of men. Teenagers, I thought, even before Sawyer and I inched closer, then a
bit to the left, to bring the posse into view.
Big, farm-bred white boys. No shock there. I doubt they had many minorities this far south of Detroit. I counted four in a semicircle around a fifth.
That fifth proved my all-white theory wrong. He was most definitely part something else, like me. Tall and skinny with it; his hands were big and his feet were big-ger. His hair was long and kinky, a mixture of browns and golds reflecting every shade of the earth and sun. He hadn’t yet grown into his body or his face. When he did, he was gonna be dangerous.
Right now his nose was too prominent, as were his eyebrows, and his eyes glinted startlingly light in his darker than suntanned face. From this distance I couldn’t tell if they were gray, green, or blue, and it didn’t matter. Those eyes made him different in one world while his skin made him different in another.
The kid didn’t speak. He held himself ready, weight forward, hands loosely clenched. His gaze remained on the biggest, loudest boy. I figured that would be the one to throw the first punch. They usually are.
I was wrong again. Or maybe not so much. The big boy sneered the N-word—a more painful strike than fists could ever be—and the skinny kid popped him in the face.
Blood spurted. “You broke my nose.”
The breeze kicked up, stirring my hair but not the trees.
Marbas, Ruthie whispered.
Was she referring to the black kid, the white, or both? Hard to say. Beyond the certainty that it was a breed. I didn’t know what in hell a Marbas was.
“Kick his ass,” the leader of the pack snarled, and the three huge beastie boys moved forward like hulking monsters from a Dark Horse comic book.
I took a step forward, too, and Sawyer put a hand on my arm. “Wait,” he breathed. “Watch.”
I nearly ignored him. I couldn’t just stand here and let the kid get pummeled. He might be as tall as the others but he wasn’t as solid. They’d been eating steadily and well for most of their lives. He had not. Besides, it just annoyed the hell out of me when someone got picked on because they were different.
It did go back to my childhood. Sue me.
However, in the short time it took for Sawyer to speak and me to hesitate, the boy took care of himself.
One came at him from the right, another from the left, and a third from behind. He snatched the hands of the two on each side as they tried to punch him, and swung them toward each other. They slammed chests, then foreheads, and went down like bricks.
The boy did a front flip over their prone bodies, and the guy who’d been about to bear-hug him fell on his face. The bleeding mammoth lumbered upward, and the boy kicked him in the chest with a tattered tennis shoe. His attacker not only landed on his rump, but the momentum made him crash onto his back and his head thunked against the dirt and dry grass.
The one who’d meant to squeeze the kid to death sat up, rubbing his forehead. The boy was leaning over the kid whose nose he’d broken; he wasn’t paying attention. I opened my mouth to shout a warning as the guy lumbered toward him like an out-of-control locomotive on a downhill track, and Sawyer clapped a hand over my lips.
At the last possible instant, the boy ducked, twisted, and kicked out with his left leg. The attacker flew off his feet and back several yards. He was slow getting up, as were the other three. They shook their heads, dazed, but they came right back.
A low rumbling growl swirled around the clearing, increasing to a roar—a lion’s roar—so loud and forceful I could have sworn the trees shook, and the earth trembled. If that wasn’t scary enough, the kid’s eyes blazed amber and his mane of tangled golden-brown hair stuck out from his head like Medusa’s snakes.
“Marbas,” I said.
“Some kind of lion-shifter,” Sawyer murmured.
“What kind?” I asked.
Sawyer shrugged. He knew some things, but not everything.
The bullies ran, crashing through the underbrush like wounded water buffalo. The Marbas clenched and unclenched his hands, bouncing on his toes, his light eyes intent on their retreating forms.
His need to chase them vibrated in the air like an approaching electrical storm. When prey ran, predators pursued. It was what we did.
Even when I’d been a cop, the principle applied. Only the guilty ran. Not to chase them had been as against my nature then as it must be against this kid’s nature to let the vanquished escape. But he did.
I contemplated him and wondered why we had come here. To stop him from killing those kids? He hadn’t, and he could have, which made me think he wasn’t evil, but you never could tell.
I pulled my knife from its sheath. Silver worked on most shifters and was always worth a try.
“You can come out now,” the kid murmured, still staring after the departed boys.
I didn’t realize he was talking to us until Sawyer skirted the trees and strode into the clearing.
The Marbas looked him up and down. “I guess you aren’t from social services,” he said.
Sawyer didn’t answer.
“What about her?” He jerked his head toward the trees.
He was good. I slipped out, and as soon as I did, the boy’s lips curved. “I don’t think you’re a social worker, either.”
I supposed the knife gave me away.
“So who are you and how did you find me?”
Sawyer had found him. Which, come to think of it, was weird. He wasn’t a seer, that was my gig, but I hadn’t had a tingle until I’d gotten close. To figure out once and for all why we were here, I needed to get a lit-tie closer.
“I’m Elizabeth Phoenix.” I put away the knife, then held out my hand for a shake. A risk, true, but Sawyer could take a lion. I hoped.
The kid hesitated, as if he weren’t used to people shaking his hand, then he stuck his out. “Luther Vincent.”
The instant his huge paw enveloped my much smaller appendage, I saw where he’d been. Foster home after foster home. No one had had the courage to keep him. Strange things happened around Luther that no one could explain. Bloody things. Deadly things.
His parents had been—
The kid tugged on his hand. I didn’t let go. I closed my eyes and opened my mind.
Killed by lions. In a suburb in—
My fingers tightened. Cleveland.
I wondered how those in charge had managed to explain that.
When he tugged again, I let him go, and the instant before our hands separated, I caught a word: Barbas.
I needed a quick session at Starbucks with my laptop. Then, hopefully, the great and wonderful World Wide Web would make all things clear.
“You okay, lady?”
I opened my eyes. Lady? I was twenty-five.
“How old are you?” I asked.
Luther glanced away. “Eighteen.”
Sawyer snorted, and the kid’s cheeks darkened. “I am!”
He wasn’t. But we didn’t need to go there right now.
“Who are you?” Luther glared at Sawyer. Was he just being a kid, problems with authority and all that, or was his inner lion sensing Sawyer’s inner … menagerie?
“Sawyer.”
“Sawyer what? Or is it what Sawyer?”
“Just Sawyer.”
“Like Beyonce?” Luther sneered.
Sawyer glanced at me. “Nephilim?”
I shook my head. “Singer.”
His forehead creased. “Siren?”
“Is this guy for real?” Luther asked. “Been caught in a time warp, man?”
“In a way,” I murmured, but the kid wasn’t listening. He had other, better questions.
“Who sent you?”
I’d like to hear the answer to that myself.
“Who do you think sent us?” Sawyer murmured.
Oh, brother. Question with a question. That oughta get the kid talking.
“Is there someone chasing you?” Sawyer continued. “Do you have something to hide?”
Luther’s eyes, which appeared more hazel now than amber, flickered.
“This is my place. You can both just get the hell off.”
“Is it your place? If I ask around, what will I find?” Sawyer moved closer to Luther. And Luther moved closer to me.
“Sawyer,” I murmured. “I don’t think he wants you to be so close.”
“I don’t care what he wants,” Sawyer began.
The kid grabbed my knife. From the way he’d been retreating toward me, as if he needed my protection, as if he were backing down, I hadn’t expected the move, and I stood there gaping like an idiot.
The kid was quick as a cat—wonder why?—and would have buried my knife in Sawyer’s stomach. Except Sawyer was quick as … a lot of things.
He snatched Luther’s wrist before the boy could even start a downward arc and squeezed. The knife dropped to the ground; the pointy end stuck in the dirt the way Luther had wanted it to stick into Sawyer.
“You’re somethin’.” Luther’s voice lowered; the lion purred just below the surface. “Somethin’ different.”
I tensed. How did he know that? Sure, Sawyer didn’t look like a regular person, but he didn’t look like an unperson either. I suddenly understood why Sawyer had brought us here.
“Seer?” I murmured.
Sawyer shook his head.
DK.
Which brought back the original question.
“Why do you think he’s different?” I asked.
The two tussled, the kid trying to break loose, Saw-yer expending a minimum of effort not to let him. Luther showed me his teeth and said nothing.
Sawyer twisted the boy’s arm behind his back and said, “Answer her.”
“Hey!” I protested. “No need to get rough.”
“He could get out of this if he tried.” The kid’s head went up; his face reflected his confusion.
I was starting to get the feeling that Luther had no idea what he was. How frightening would that be?
“Why did you think that I was different?” Sawyer repeated.
“I can feel it, okay?” Luther’s voice was strained. The more he tried to break free, the tighter Sawyer’s grip be-came on his arm. “I’ve been feeling it my whole life.”
Doomsday Can Wait Page 19
