I didn’t, no, but—
“Some do.” I turned back. “Your . . . father for instance.”
Jimmy’s mouth thinned. He was understandably touchy on the subject of dear old dad—a strega (definition: medieval vampire witch). He’d done things to Jimmy that rivaled what had been done to him on the streets, and that was saying quite a bit.
I was so glad I’d put a stake through the miserable bastard’s black heart.
“The strega had centuries to work on his control,” Jimmy said. “And he never confined his nature like we have. When you do that and then you let it out, bad things happen.”
I returned to watching the varcolac ash swirl, the moon shimmering through each particle as if the heavens were spilling silver-tinged snow. Pretty if you didn’t know what those flakes had once been.
“Or good,” I said. “Depending on your point of view.”
Jimmy remained silent. I knew his point of view. Going vamp was never good. On the one hand, I agreed. On the other, fighting extreme evil called for extreme measures. I’d pledged myself to saving the world. I wasn’t going to go about it half-assed.
“By restricting our vampire nature, we only make it stronger, more volatile, if possible more violent,” he continued. “The monster can’t wait to get out and kill.”
I wanted to disagree, except I knew he was right. Sometimes when I was sleeping and I awoke into that twilight time between states, I heard my demon screaming. A few times when I was alone and wide awake, I heard a murmur in my head enticing me to do terrible things. When the collar came off, I did them.
“We need to find a way to release your demon more than once a month,” I said.
“Not.” He slammed the trunk and headed for the driver’s seat.
I stood there for a few seconds, then scrambled around to my side and jumped in just as he hit the gas.
“You know that we do.” Jimmy didn’t answer. “Ruthie said.”
“ ‘Ruthie said,’ ” he mocked. “I don’t give a flying fuck.”
“Don’t let her hear you say that.”
Ruthie wasn’t above smacking someone in the mouth for “smart talk,” “back talk,” “blasphemy” or pretty much anything she didn’t like. Her being dead hadn’t stopped the back of her hand from connecting with my face. It had hurt even if it had been in a vision. However, since Jimmy wasn’t able to channel the dead, he was probably safe.
“You need to convince Summer to reverse the spell,” I said.
Jimmy’s vampire had been pushed beneath the moon. In other words, he became a monster only when the moon was full. The other twenty-odd days, he was just Jimmy. Dangerous as hell, but not damn near unstoppable. Like me.
“She won’t.” His hands clenched on the steering wheel. “I don’t think she can.”
Summer Bartholomew was a fairy. Think life-sized Tinkerbell without the wings; add cowboy boots, a white hat and slutty clothes with a lot of fringe.
Summer and I hadn’t bonded well, mainly because she was head-over-heels, do-anything-and-everything in love with Jimmy. It hadn’t helped that when he’d left me the first time, he’d gone to her.
She was also the one responsible for the dog collar around my neck. Not that I didn’t need it, but couldn’t she have bespelled a nice silver chain, a diamond ear stud? Even a leather bracelet would have been better than what I had. But Summer had seen a way to infuriate me, and she’d taken it.
That I’d have done the exact same thing were I capable of performing magic didn’t lessen my irritation with her one bit. To make matters worse, Summer had performed a sex spell to confine Jimmy’s demon.
I know. I shouldn’t throw stones—sexual empath and all that—but the fairy annoyed me. Probably because several times when I’d touched her, or touched Jimmy, I’d seen them. Made me want to scrub out my brain with a gallon of scalding water and a whole lot of bleach.
“What’s so hard about it?” I asked. “Can’t she just . . . do you backward?”
“Apparently not,” Jimmy said.
“She’s refusing to reverse the spell because she knows that you don’t want her to.”
“I don’t, but that doesn’t mean I won’t. I think we need a bigger fairy.”
I’d been taking a sip from a tepid bottle of water I’d left in the car earlier. That sip sprayed all over the windshield. “What?”
His lips twitched. “A more powerful fairy.”
“There are grades of fairyness?”
“So Summer says.”
“Repeat that five times fast,” I muttered. “Where do we find a grade-A, top-of-the-line, more-powerful-than-Summer fairy?”
“You’re gonna have to ask her.”
“You didn’t?”
“I don’t want to go back to the way that I was.”
“You said you would.”
“I didn’t say I’d help.”
“Fine,” I snapped. I hated asking Summer for anything, but I was the leader of this merry band of demon killers, and Summer knew it. She’d tell me.
Or I’d make her. I kind of hoped she didn’t want to tell me.
“I really thought the Nephilim had the key,” I murmured. How else had they released the Grigori?
“It’s probably a good thing if they don’t.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to say, No shit, but I refrained.
“Do you know anything about the Book of Samyaza?” I asked.
Jimmy cast me a quick glance, his dark eyes unreadable in the eerie glow from the dash. We were headed toward LA; the press of the lights against the night made the sky luminescent and really kind of creepy.
“That’s a myth.”
“So are we.”
Every legendary tale of monsters from the dawn of time was true. They were Nephilim or breeds, but they were very, very real.
Remember Goliath—that giant of antiquity? Nephilim.
Vampires. Werewolves. Evil, dark scary things. Nephilim. Or, in some cases, breeds.
Witch hunts? They probably had the right idea but the wrong execution. Pardon the pun. You can’t kill witches just by drowning them. Most of them won’t even burn.
“Samyaza was the leader of the earthly angels,” I said.
“Satan,” Jimmy agreed. “Thrown into the pit. I don’t think he had time to write a book.”
“I think he had plenty of time to do a lot of things. According to Ruthie, he’s been whispering to the Nephilim from the beginning.”
“What’s he been whispering?”
“Revelatory prophecies for the other side.” I shrugged. “Instructions for winning this war.”
“And you’re saying someone wrote them down in the Book of Samyaza?”
“Yes.”
“Bullshit.”
“We got the Bible in pretty much the same way,” I pointed out.
“God whispering. Satan whispering.” Jimmy’s mouth twisted. “I don’t think that’s quite the same.”
“I suppose not.” I took a deep breath. “And there is one big difference.”
“What’s that?”
“According to legend, whoever possesses the Book of Samyaza is invincible.”
Jimmy chewed on his lower lip for a minute as he contemplated the steadily lightening night sky. “Then we’d damn straight better find it first.”
CHAPTER 4
I had a lot on my plate. Find the Book of Samyaza, even though no one had ever seen it.
Find the Key of Solomon—everyone who’d ever seen that was dead.
Find an über-fairy to release Jimmy’s demon vampire.
Deal with the Grigori somehow—either discover what they looked like, how to kill them, and then do it or get our hands on the key and command them back into Tartarus.
Attempt to keep the chaos that was overtaking the world from ending the world with a seriously depleted cadre of seers and demon killers.
Discover who was jockeying to become the new leader of the demon horde—code name the Antichrist—a
nd, what the hell, kill him too.
“I need a drink,” I muttered, wishing like crazy I was back at work in Milwaukee, where I made ends meet by tending bar at Murphy’s—a cop bar on the East Side of town.
The job had begun as a form of penance. I’d once been a cop. Then my psychic gift had led my partner and me into a situation where only one of us had emerged alive. I still wished it hadn’t been me.
Max Murphy had been a great guy, a good cop, a wonderful husband and a caring father. He’d been the best partner an officer could hope for. He’d believed in me, and his belief had gotten him killed.
I hadn’t been able to remain a cop after that—no one trusted me; hell, I didn’t trust myself—so I’d quit the force. I could find no better way to be punished for my sins than to work for the widow of the man I’d destroyed.
To my amazement, Megan didn’t hate me. She didn’t blame me. The crazy woman loved me.
While I wanted nothing more than to head into Murphy’s and draw a Miller Lite, then sit down and drink it with Megan, I couldn’t go back there and risk her life and the lives of her three kids the way I’d risked Max’s.
Jimmy drove toward LAX. Even at this time of night, make that morning, the traffic was obscene. How did people live here?
He found a decent hotel, went inside to book a room. He was less bloody than I was. When he came out he handed me a key. I stared at it dumbly. Separate rooms? That was . . . different.
I didn’t comment. Jimmy was in charge of the bills; he could do what he liked. This saving-the-world gig didn’t pay well. Hell, it didn’t pay anything. Once “recruited” into the federation, DKs and seers obtained “cover” jobs that allowed them to easily do their secret jobs while providing them with enough cash to live on and fund their clandestine activities. Ruthie had run a foster-care facility, which allowed her to take care of her duties as both a seer and the leader of the light while also recruiting for the federation.
The most troubled kids are usually the most powerful kids in terms of supernatural gifts. They’re different, big-time, and they end up getting kicked out of home after home because around them weird stuff happens.
And when they try to explain it, they can’t. Or what’s the truth sounds very much like a lie: I don’t know how the family dog ended up in pieces. I can’t remember how I got out of the house, or what I did for the past three hours. I can’t explain why my clothes are always torn and bloody yet I’m not.
Ruthie had been the first person to tell me it was okay that I “knew” stuff about people just by touching them. That I wasn’t evil or crazy. That I didn’t have to hide it—at least from her.
Jimmy and I each grabbed our own duffel and went into the hotel. The two rooms were located right next to each other. I guess I should be glad he hadn’t asked for separate floors.
“Night.” Jimmy disappeared inside.
I went in, saw the connecting door, felt a little better, until I opened it and discovered the one to his side remained closed. I left mine open and got into the shower.
The blood had dried; it took a while to get it all off. I let my hair air-dry—there wasn’t much of it; I’d learned the hard way when I’d been a cop that long hair was an invitation for morons to pull it out or spit gum in. I’d hacked off my dark brown tresses a few weeks into my rookie year, and I kept them short now by snipping at them with any sharp implement available. For some reason the choppy, messy style suited my face.
It was an exotic face, or so I’d been told. Skin darker than the average Caucasian, hinting at a mixed heritage, my bright blue eyes as much a mystery as the rest of me.
The hotel was more upscale than I’d been staying in lately. There was a mini-bar, and I pulled out that beer I’d been craving. Ten bucks. I twisted off the cap. Jimmy could afford it.
My finances were in flux. Cop to bartender was considered by most a downward trend, although on a busy night, tending bar was definitely more lucrative. But since I’d had to go on the road as the leader of the light, my cash flow had dwindled.
The only money coming in was from a rental property I’d bought when I left the force—a combination storefront, occupied by a knickknack shop, and a second-floor apartment, where I’d lived until everyone and their demon sister found out about it.
Not too long ago a seer had been murdered right on my doorstep. That she’d been torn in two had caused no small amount of consternation to the tiny police force in Friedenberg—population around three thousand. They’d called in the FBI. As far as I knew, the case was still open. Probably always would be.
I could rent out the apartment to increase my income—if I could find anyone willing to get past the whole murdered-woman-on-the-doorstep issue—but the idea of having no home, like Jimmy, was more than I could stomach. Brought back too many memories of the years before Ruthie. I might be a rough, tough demon-killing psychic, but being homeless scared me.
Finishing the beer, I glanced at the clock. Three A.M. and the connecting door was still closed. Silence pulsed from Jimmy’s room. Nothing to do but sleep. But I wasn’t sure I could.
I guess I did because the next thing I knew the clock read four thirty and the dark wasn’t so dark anymore. I went still, listening. Jimmy was moving around on the other side of the wall.
Since Sanducci had been known to sneak off and leave me behind, I got up, threw on some clothes and headed toward the connecting door.
One quick flick of my wrist and the lock snapped. The superior strength I’d absorbed empathically when I’d become a dhampir definitely didn’t suck. Unfortunately, when the door was grabbed from the other side and yanked open I was too surprised to use my superior speed to duck and just stood there as cool sparkling mist dampened my cheeks and stuck to my eyelids.
Fairy dust. I hated that stuff.
“Why do you do that?” I scrubbed my palms over my face. “You know it doesn’t work on me.”
Summer Bartholomew scowled, hands clenching into fists before she spun on the heels of her cowboy boots and stalked away, the fringe on her white leather halter top swaying. “I didn’t know it was you.”
“Who else would it be?” I followed her into the room.
“Since when do you two sleep alone?”
I wasn’t going to discuss Sanducci’s sleeping arrangements with the woman—make that fairy—who loved him.
My gaze went to the bed, as I wondered why Jimmy wasn’t waking up and telling us to clam up, but it was empty. Hell, not only empty, but also never been slept in. He’d pulled a Houdini again.
“What did you do to him?” Summer asked.
My mind flashed to last night in the desert. Jimmy staked to the ground, naked skin on naked skin. The scent of the blood, the feel of his body in mine when it hadn’t really been mine.
Mmm, the demon whispered. Wanna do it again.
“Shut up,” I muttered.
Summer shot me a glare, and her hand lifted, as if she’d shoot her sparkling “make me” dust one more time. It wouldn’t function any better than the last time. Because fairy magic doesn’t work on those on errands of mercy, and that would be my new life in a nutshell. That she couldn’t make me do whatever she wished drove Summer batty.
“You don’t need to be so bitchy,” she said. “I didn’t break him. You did.”
“He isn’t a toy.”
Toy, my demon whispered. Yessss.
I smacked myself in the forehead. All that got me was the beginnings of another headache.
“What is wrong with you?” Summer asked.
I wasn’t going to inform her that I’d started to hear the vampire in my head even when it wasn’t loose. No telling what she’d do to me then. Maybe lock me in the golden-barred room of her Irish cottage back in New Mexico.
I couldn’t let that happen. I had too much to do.
“Los Angeles is kind of a hike for a booty call,” I observed. “Not that Sanducci isn’t worth it, but have some pride.”
Her blue eyes narrowed
in her perfect little face. Long blond hair, body that fit into size zero jeans as if they’d been invented for her, dewy pink lips that matched the hue of her fingernails. Hell, she drove me batty just by breathing.
Sure, fairies practiced glamour—magic that made them appear more attractive—but since Summer’s magic didn’t work on me, I figured she’d been stunning from the day of her birth. Although I don’t think fairies are born.
They aren’t Nephilim or breeds. Back when the angels were sent to earth to watch the humans, some of them actually watched instead of chasing us around like satyrs after wood nymphs.
When God slammed closed the pearly gates on the Grigori and dropped them into Tartarus, those angels trapped on earth that were too good to go to hell but not angelic enough to return to heaven—earth was no longer paradise, and it appears that just being here tarnished even the most crystalline soul—became fairies.
Some of them work for us and some of them have gone to the dark side—or so I hear. I’d yet to meet any other fairies but Summer. Which reminded me. “I need the name and location of an über-fairy.”
Summer snorted. “Yeah, that’ll happen.”
“You seem to forget who’s the boss of you.”
“Since you’re no longer the conduit to Ruthie, I’m not sure how in charge you are.”
I frowned. “I’m the leader of the light.”
“Big fat hairy deal.”
“You have to listen to me.”
“I’m not compelled to follow orders; I choose to. Right now I choose to say—” She gave me the finger.
I jumped her. Couldn’t help myself. Summer had been begging for an ass-kicking from the moment I’d first seen her in Jimmy’s head. That I’d refrained this long was downright saintly.
Summer had supernatural powers. She could do magic, cast spells; she could fly without wings. She was one of the federation’s top DKs, with countless kills to her credit. But she’d never had to fight me in a bad mood.
We hit the ground hard. I got a pointy elbow in the throat. Coughing, I rolled free; as she started to get up, I decked her. She flew into the wall. Didn’t seem to hurt her any. She was on her feet again as quickly as I.
Blood trickled from her lip, which had started to swell. Fairies were pretty hard to kill—had to use cold steel or rowan—but they didn’t appear to heal as fast as a dhampir. Lucky me.
Apocalypse Happens Page 3
