Doomsday Can Wait

by Lori Handeland

  “Compact, mid-size, full, or luxury?” the rental car clerk asked.

  “What do they call those brand-new vehicles that resemble a tank on truck wheels?” Sawyer asked.

  “Hummers?”

  Sawyer’s eyebrows lifted. “I always thought a hummer was something else entirely.”

  Considering this was Sawyer, I knew exactly what he was talking about.

  So did the rental clerk. She looked Sawyer up and down—even in his stupid discount tourist outfit, he was hotter than hot—and licked her lips. “You’d like a hummer, sir? I think I can take care of that.”

  I just bet she could. Honestly, there was chaos all over the news, we were trying to save the world here, and I had to deal with slutty rental agents and Sawyer’s innuendos.

  “Any old car will do,” I said.

  “No.” Sawyer quit having eye sex with the clerk and became all business. “Summer’s place isn’t easy to get to. We need that Hummer.”

  “Maybe you do,” I muttered. Jimmy drove a Hum-mer. Last time I’d seen it had been when he’d dumped me at Sawyer’s and run off to become evil. Things had gone downhill from there.

  However, I could understand why such a car would be helpful where we were headed, so I nodded at the woman, signed the papers, took the key.

  Fifteen minutes later I stared at the military assault vehicle I’d just rented. “Who thought putting these on the road was a good idea?”

  “Bigger is always better.” Sawyer climbed into the passenger seat as Luther clambered into the back. “It’s the American way.”

  I’d put my foot down at renting a taxicab-yellow tank, so ours was a sparkly shade of beige, which should blend into the desert, but wouldn’t. Anything this big was going to stand out like a—

  “Lion in a haystack,” I muttered. That phrase was really growing on me.

  I pulled out of the parking lot and headed west.

  The Navajo reservation spread across Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, with the largest portion in Arizona. Sawyer lived near Mount Taylor, one of the four sacred mountains that marked the boundaries of the Dinetah. According to my walk through Jimmy’s head, Summer’s place should be near Mount Taylor, too, but on the far side.

  I didn’t know when Summer had moved to the reservation, but I did know why. She’d been sent to spy on Sawyer.

  “You know where Summer lives?” I asked.

  Sawyer’s eyes were closed; his head lay back against the headrest. Luther, stretched out on the rear seat, was already fast asleep.

  In this huge car, they both seemed so small. I felt like I was in a sci-fi movie—The Incredible Shrinking Leader of the Light. I had to reach up to get my hands around the steering wheel, tilt the rearview mirror way down. The only people who might be at home in this beast were Yao Ming or maybe Peyton Manning.

  “You don’t know?” Sawyer murmured.

  “I got the gist,” I said. “But what if she glamours everything up again?”

  Sawyer opened one eye. “She will.”

  “Then maybe you should open both eyes and tell me where to turn.”

  He shut them instead. “Stay on this road. Wake me in an hour.”

  Silence settled over us; the steady, even cadence of both Sawyer’s and Luther’s breathing soothed me. I considered turning on the radio, but I was afraid there’d be no music, only news, and I’d heard enough.

  What I needed to do was spend some quiet time preparing for what was to come. It was all well and good to say I was going to do whatever I had to, but when push came to shove, would I be able to go through with it? Would I be able to let Jimmy make me like him? Would I be able to battle with the woman of smoke and win?

  The answer to every single one of those questions was: I had to.

  We left Albuquerque baking beneath the summer sun and headed across flat, arid plains the shade of salmon and copper. Eventually mountain foothills appeared, dotted with towering ponderosa pines. In the distance, canyons surrounded by high, spiked sand-colored rock warred with red mesas, a landscape immortalized in the western movie classics of several previous generations.

  An hour later, I reached for Sawyer’s shoulder to shake him awake, but before my fingers even touched his skin, he opened his eyes and drew away from me.

  Tiny houses dotted the horizon; the mountain rose behind them like a long, looming pyramid. Between 3.3 and 1.5 million years ago Mount Taylor had been an ac-tive volcano. Sometimes I still expected it to rumble.

  The Navajo refer to it as their sacred mountain of the south or the turquoise mountain. Legends say it is fastened from the sky to the earth by a flint knife studded with turquoise.

  I touched the stone still looped around my neck along with Ruthie’s crucifix. “Did you find this on Mount Taylor?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  I thought that might be a very good thing. There was something magic about that mountain, always had been.

  “Don’t take it off,” Sawyer said.

  The turquoise had kept the woman of smoke from touching me. If I could capture Jimmy’s evil essence, gain the strength that would allow me to fight her, and she couldn’t fight back, then I’d win. This sounded like a slam dunk.

  Which made me really, really nervous. I wasn’t very old, might not get much older the way things were headed, but I’d learned long ago that when something looked like a slam dunk, it just meant you’d better get ready to eat the ball.

  “You should probably remove the crucifix,” Sawyer said.

  I frowned. The crucifix had been Ruthie’s. It was all I had left of her, except for her voice in my head, her presence in my dreams, and her power in my soul. Still, if this worked, if I became the darkness by becoming a vampire, the crucifix was going to burn one helluva hole in me. I’d heal, but I’d still like to avoid that.

  I pulled over to the side of the road and slipped the silver icon from the chain, then handed it to Sawyer, before replacing the turquoise around my neck and easing back onto the highway.

  A few minutes later, Sawyer murmured, “Turn at the next road.”

  I wheeled the Hummer off the paved highway and onto a dirt track. The subsequent dips and bumps woke Luther.

  “We there yet?” he asked, rubbing his eyes.

  I smiled at him in the rearview mirror. “Soon. I think you should stay in the car.”

  He dropped his hand, his head jerked up, and his kinky blond-brown hair waved. “Like hell!”

  “It might be,” I murmured.

  “I can help,” he said. “I’m a lion.”

  “Cub,” Sawyer corrected.

  “Bite me,” the kid muttered.

  “I’d be happy to.”

  “Hey,” I interrupted. “We’re on the same side.”

  All I needed was for the lion and the tiger—or wolf, cougar, eagle, whatever—to start fighting. Someone would get hurt, and I knew who that someone would be. We needed Luther, and about two million more like him.

  “You’ll stay in the car,” I told the boy. I didn’t want him to see what I might become.

  He subsided, grumbling beneath his breath, sounding very much like a full-grown lion rather than the cub, but I thought he’d listen. I thought he’d stay.

  “There.” Sawyer pointed.

  I slammed on the brakes. “Where?” I saw nothing.

  “This is the fairy’s house.”

  “What is?” Luther asked. At least he didn’t see it, either.

  Sawyer got out of the car and strode across the dry grass. He stopped, reached into his pocket, then, lifting his hands to the blazing sun, he chanted.

  I got out, too. and followed, throwing one final “stay” glance over my shoulder at the kid. Sawyer finished whatever he’d been saying, then lowered his arms.

  “I still don’t see anything,” I said.

  He threw out his hands and something dry and pow-dery swirled in a sudden wind. The particles seemed to absorb then reflect all the colors around us—first yel-low, then tan. deep
brown, and cayenne.

  The powder paused and hovered, lingering as if thinking, perhaps listening. Then the wind died, the particles fell away, and where they’d once been now stood a house.

  “What did you throw?” I asked.

  Sawyer merely smiled.

  The building looked strange sitting in front of the mountain revered by the Navajo. It looked even stranger when compared to the other houses speckled here and there across the land. Hogans, the traditional Navajo dwelling, abounded.

  The round structures, made of logs and dirt, contained no windows and only one door, which faced east toward the sun. Next to most of the hogans were living quarters of a more modern nature—trailers, ranch houses, a few shacks. But nowhere was there an Irish cottage made of done.

  “Is that real?” I murmured. “Or is it like the green hills and mists of Ireland?” Neither of which were in evidence today.

  “Real enough,” Sawyer answered, and at my exasperated hiss elaborated. “The dwelling changes, depending on her mood. I’ve come here and found a hacienda, a ranch complete with horses, a seaside villa, and a cabin deep in a dark forest of trees that would never grow in a place like this.”

  “Don’t people in the area get a little wigged out?” I started up the cobblestone walkway, and Sawyer followed.

  “I don’t think people in the area are aware of her being here at all. If they were, they’d be forced to take action.”

  “Because they’d think she was a witch,” I said.

  Sawyer didn’t answer. He didn’t need to.

  “What would they do?”

  “Common practice is to tie a witch down, no food or water until they confess.”

  “And if they don’t confess?”

  “Hot coals to the bottom of the feet on the fourth day.”

  “And then?”

  Sawyer slowly drew his finger across his throat.

  “What if they do confess?”

  Sawyer made the same gesture in the opposite direction.

  “That hardly seems fair.”

  “Since when has life or death or justice, for that matter, ever been fair?”

  What a bright and cheery outlook on life. Sadly, Sawyer was right.

  “I guess the Navajo method is no better or worse than the Inquisition’s test for witches,” I said. “If you survive drowning, you’re a witch and you burn. If you drown, whoops. Sorry. My bad.”

  Sawyer stopped and glanced at me with a deadpan expression. “I highly doubt any members of the Inquisition said my bad.”

  “And I doubt they said sorry.” Or whoops, either.

  For an instant I nearly forgot where we were, what we—make that I—was about to do, and smiled at him. Then, out of the corner of my eye, something shifted, shimmered, and changed shape.

  I whipped my head in that direction to discover that the sweet, stone cottage had morphed into a gray stone prison, complete with an eight-foot concrete wall topped by barbed wire.

  “She knows we’re here,” I said.

  Turrets graced the corners of the walls, manned by—

  I squinted at the great, hulking figures. Some had bodies like men, heads like animals. Others were part bull, part lion, part falcon perhaps, with large wings sweeping from their shoulders.

  “Are those gargoyles?” Sawyer nodded. “I thought they were statues on buildings.”

  “Most gargoyles can turn to stone to avoid detection, then turn back into a chimera at will.”

  “What’s a chimera?”

  “Two animals as one.”

  “So all the gargoyles on all the buildings all over the world can come to life?”

  Sawyer spread his hands. Who knew?

  “Are they Nephilim?” He shook his head. “Breeds?”

  “No. The gargoyles were animals that aided the fairies when they first fell to the earth. The fairies were lost. They had no idea how to survive here. They were suddenly humanoid. They needed to eat, sleep, protect themselves from the elements, and they didn’t know how.”

  “The Grigori had their human lovers to help them,” I reasoned.

  “The Grigori were cast into Tartarus so fast they didn’t have time to panic.”

  “I’ll take your word for it,” I said. “So certain animals helped the fairies, and in return .. . ?”

  “They were given humanity.”

  “That’s human?” I muttered. The heavenly rewards around here were kind of iffy.

  “They have the intelligence of humans, with the assets of their beast, combined with the gifts of flight and shape-shifting. They’re more than human,” Sawyer said. “Once the fairies settled in, once they could manage on their own, the gargoyles were charged with protecting the weak and unwary from demon attack. The more humans they save, the more human they become.”

  I glanced up at the turrets. I guess that explained the human and animal combos.

  “What are they doing here?” I asked.

  Sawyer contemplated the towers as the gargoyles, standing as still as stone, contemplated us. The only thing that made them seem real were the colors of their flesh, their hair, their fur or wings, and the slight rise and fall of their chests. Their flat black eyes reminded me of the statues they could become and made me wonder if they were capable of showing any mercy at all.

  “Summer must have enlisted them for protection,” Sawyer said. “The gargoyles and the fairies are still very close.”

  We’d stopped halfway down the cobblestone walk, which was now just cement, as gray and hard as the walls of the prison. As we began to move forward, the air filled with the slow, methodic beat of giant wings.

  My gaze flicked upward. The gargoyles had taken to the air.

  I cursed. Sawyer kept walking.

  “Hey.” I scurried after. “They’re going to protect this place from demon attack.”

  He lifted a hand, making his “stopping traffic, crossing guard” gesture, and the prison wall imploded.

  “I’m not a demon,” Sawyer said, and walked inside.

  CHAPTER 30

  Sawyer had put a pretty huge hole in the gray stone wall. Summer was going to be pissed.

  I glanced at the gargoyles. They continued to hover in the sky above as if waiting for an order. Attack or retreat?

  Maybe they couldn’t attack if we weren’t demons. Maybe they couldn’t decide what we were. Hell, I still had doubts of my own.

  I stepped through the jagged hole, my shoes crunching on busted concrete. Dust sparkled in the glare of sunlight through the un-door. I frowned at that sunshine. The angle was off.

  Quickly I glanced back. The stone walkway seemed to stretch for miles. The Hummer sitting at the curb looked the size of a Pekingese. The sun had fallen a lot farther than it should have for the amount of time I thought we’d been gone.

  “How long have we been walking?” I asked.

  Sawyer, who’d been staring up a stone staircase that disappeared into a dark and shadowy second floor, turned, then shrugged. “Does it matter?”

  I felt adrift, confused, and out of my element, which was probably what Summer was after. “Is she messing with time and space?”

  “What do you think?” He gestured at the stairway that should not exist in a tiny, one-room Irish cottage.

  “Why?”

  “Because she can, but she should save her magic for someone who cares. It isn’t going to make us run screaming.”

  “You’ll never find him.” As Summer’s voice echoed through the shadowy darkness of the second floor, the prison seemed to swell, becoming taller and wider. “I won’t let you.”

  There were now at least four floors above us; half a dozen halls led away from the gaping entry. Doors upon doors, hundreds, perhaps thousands, appeared.

  “I won’t leave,” I said quietly, knowing she could hear me. “You can’t make me.”

  Summer appeared on the fourth-floor landing. “Watch me,” she said, and jumped.

  I flinched before I remembered that she could fly. Sh
e floated gently downward, landing in front of me. Wearing her usual tight jeans, boots, and halter top, she’d left her cowboy hat upstairs. Her golden hair sparkled angel-like though her eyes sparked with near-demonic fury.

  “Summer, listen—” I began.

  She hit me in the face with a fistful of fairy dust. I choked.

  “Go away,” she said. “Never come here again.”

  I turned and headed for the door.

  “Phoenix,” Sawyer murmured, but I didn’t care. I had to leave. Now. I would never return. Why had I ever come in the first place?

  “Where’s Sanducci?” Sawyer demanded.

  “Who’s Sanducci?” I muttered.

  Summer laughed as I stepped out of the gaping hole in the wall and into the orange light of the setting sun. The gargoyles circled, bizarre silhouettes in the sky. The Hummer no longer appeared the size of a Pekingese. It wasn’t very far away at all. I’d be there in seconds. Luther and I would go home. I really, really wanted to go home.

  However, I’d only taken a few steps when she cried out, and the compulsion to leave drained from me as quickly as a hard rain down a steep gully.

  I went inside. Summer and Sawyer faced each other. From her outcry, I figured he’d done something violent, but there wasn’t a scratch on her, just a four-leaf clover stuck in her hair.

  “Why does your magic suddenly work on me?” I asked.

  Summer gave me an evil glare. “You are not on an errand of mercy.”

  My eyes widened. “Saving the world isn’t merciful?”

  “You’ll hurt him,” she said. “Permanently.”

  “How do you know what I’m up to?” I hadn’t talked to her since before we’d found Xander Whitelaw.

  She tapped her head. Shorthand for psychic flash.

  “Summer, I don’t have any choice.”

  “Go screw a demon. Leave Jimmy alone.”

  “It’s too dangerous,” Sawyer said. “As much as I hate to admit it, Sanducci is the best course for her.”

  “He’s in agony over what he is. Forcing him to make her that way, too—” Her eyes met mine. “It’ll destroy him.”

  She was probably right.

  “Quit punishing him for something that wasn’t his fault.”

  “This isn’t about punishing—” I began, then stopped. “What isn’t his fault?”