“You’d enjoy that.”
“I would.” I took a deep breath and faced him again. He was so close my breasts brushed his chest, and as usual, I’d never heard him move. I slammed the heels of my hands against him. “Back off.”
He must have been prepared for that reaction, because he didn’t move an inch. Instead his gaze lowered to what I first thought were my breasts, then realized was my neck. More specifically, my collar.
“I could take that off,” he whispered. “You and me, together, we could do some damage.”
I stepped out of his reach. “I think that’s what Ruthie has in mind. You and me. Doing some damage.”
His lip lifted, like a dog, except dogs didn’t have such pointy fangs. “I don’t take orders well. Even when I’m Stupid Jimmy.”
“Stupid?” Sanducci was a lot of things, but stupid had never been one of them.
“Wimpy, whiny. Everything this one—he slammed his palms against his chest with a solid thunk—“isn’t.”
“Keep that up and you’ll break some ribs,” I said.
His snarl became a smirk. “Worried?”
“No, I’d just rather do it myself.”
The screaming, which had continued in the background all this time, suddenly stopped.
“What was that?” I murmured.
“One of the Dagda’s women.”
I jolted. “What?”
“He likes it when they scream.”
“And you think I’m going to do that guy just to get his magic?”
His eyes when they met mine were more black than red, and when he spoke I heard the old Jimmy far more than I liked. “Sooner or later you’ll have to sleep with someone just for their power.”
“Maybe. But I’ll choose later and someone else.”
The red flared brighter. “I don’t think you get to choose.”
“You certainly don’t.”
I thought he might attack, and I wanted him to. Right then nothing would have made me happier than beating the ever-loving crap out of Sanducci.
“He will kill you, light’s leader.”
I whirled at the soft-voiced comment. The Dagda had slipped into the cave and now seemed to fill every inch of spare space. No wonder his women screamed. He was huge all over.
I yanked my gaze from the Frisbee-sized metal that covered his privates. “I’m not that easy.”
The Dagda’s ruby lips curved. “With this around your neck . . .” He reached out, his long, long arm stretching farther than I’d have believed possible, and drew a finger along my collar. “You are yet human. He is not.”
“I could beat him.”
“But you wouldn’t kill him, because you need him for the coming fight. And that weakness would be your undoing.”
“I can’t take him anywhere like this.” I inched back, removing my neck from the Dagda’s touch.
“No.” The Dagda let his arm fall to his side. “Which is why I made you a gift.” He held up a thin, circular piece of metal.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Bespelled,” the Dagda hedged. “When Sanducci wears it, he will again be . . . as human as he gets.”
I held out my hand, and the Dagda dropped the circlet into my palm. It was bigger than a ring, smaller than a necklace.
Frowning, I glanced from the metal to Jimmy’s biceps, then his wrist. Still not gonna fit.
“Where—?” I began, and then suddenly I knew.
The thing tumbled to the ground. Here, in the cave, the mist was absent and the earth was actually earth. The circlet hit with a tinny clank and lay still.
“That’s . . . That’s . . .” I couldn’t finish the sentence because I wasn’t certain of the term, though I knew very well what something that size would fit. I’d had my hands—among other body parts—around it often enough.
“A cock ring,” Sanducci muttered.
Even though I’d known what it was, the words shocked me. I might be a sexual empath, but that didn’t mean I had much sex. In truth I’d had very little. No telling what I might “catch” if I wasn’t careful. Unfortunately, for me, there were things much worse than an STD.
“Was that really necessary?” I asked.
Jimmy and the Dagda glanced at me in confusion. I wasn’t sure who I was addressing either. Jimmy for saying the words or the Dagda for creating the borderline-obscene control?
“What would you have me do?” the Dagda answered. “This will be hidden, not easy to remove unless removal is what is desired.”
I’d certainly have preferred a less visible means of control myself, but considering this—I frowned at the circlet, which still lay in the dirt, the reflections from the fire casting red, orange and yellow sparkles across the stone walls—I’d stick with what I had. No telling what the Dagda might come up with for me if he put his mind to it.
“I’m not wearing that,” Jimmy said.
“I can bespell something else,” the Dagda offered. “But it would take time. I’d have to wait for another sacrifice.”
I stilled. “Sacrifice?”
“For the spell.”
“Tell me you’re talking goat. Pig. Chicken.”
Jimmy’s annoying laughter swirled around the cave once more.
The Dagda’s brow creased. “What good would an animal do? For a spell of this magnitude, the blood of the innocent is needed.”
“Goats are innocent.”
“The blood must be freely given and not taken. A sacrifice,” he said slowly, as if I was dim-witted, which I guess I was.
I whirled on Jimmy, who was still laughing. “Is that what Summer did? To this?” I patted my collar, my fingernails clicking against the glittering, glass jewels like rain on a tin rooftop.
“Of course.” He smirked. “Though it was a little hard to find innocent blood at the time.”
“What did she do?” I demanded.
I had visions of Summer and Sawyer creeping into a sleeping Navajo village and stealing away a sweet-faced cherub or a nubile virgin.
“You’ll have to ask her,” Jimmy said. “I was . . . indisposed.”
Oh, yeah. He’d been screaming at the top of his lungs and throwing himself against the golden door of his prison like a lunatic.
“Your women.” I turned back to the fairy god. “They give themselves freely?”
His lips curved into a seductive smile. “Wouldn’t you?”
“Not so much.”
The smile froze. “I bring joy beyond compare. I am very good at my job.”
“You’re killing women with sex.”
“What?” he roared. “Who says this thing?”
I glanced at Jimmy, and the Dagda took a step toward him. “Whoa!” I put up my hand. “You said it yourself. As much fun as it would be to kill him, he’s needed.”
The Dagda blew air out his nose like an enraged bull, causing a puff of dirt to swirl across his feet. “I kill no one. They scream with pleasure, not pain. They give themselves; I do not take.”
“Unlike some people,” I murmured, narrowing my eyes at Jimmy, who smirked and shrugged.
Asshole.
“These women,” I continued. “They’re human?” The Dagda nodded. “And they sacrifice themselves why?”
“For gain.”
“Money? Power? Love?”
“Yes.”
“How do they know about you?”
“Some still follow the ancient ways. Not many, not anymore, which is why it may take a while for me to bespell another item.” He leaned down and picked up the ring, twirling it around his finger as he straightened.
I thought of the Phoenix rising toward the sun, carrying the Key of Solomon Lord knew where, to do Satan knew what.
“No.” I plucked the ring off the Dagda’s finger. “We don’t really have any time to waste.”
“Fuck,” Jimmy muttered as I turned. His eyes flared red and he showed me his fangs. “I’m not gonna let you put that on me.”
“I’d be disappointed
if you did.” I glanced at the Dagda. “Wanna hold him down?”
The fairy god’s gaze remained on Jimmy. “I thought you’d never ask.”
CHAPTER 20
I could probably have done it myself, but it would have taken longer and, as the Dagda had pointed out, Jimmy, in this form, didn’t care if he killed me, himself, everyone—if there was anyone—in a fifty-mile radius. He’d enjoy it. While I had to worry about what would happen to the world if I died, if he did, and carry the guilt if Jimmy ripped out the Dagda’s throat and took a shower in his blood.
Jimmy backed up, gaze flicking from the fairy god to me several times. “He won’t like this,” Jimmy said, referring, I assumed, to the Jimmy who waited on the other side of “this.”
“I don’t care.” A lie. I cared, but I had no choice.
Jimmy whirled to run; I tensed to chase. The Dagda threw up one hand like a crossing guard miming stop, and Jimmy crumpled to the ground.
“Hey!” I hurried to Sanducci’s side. “What happened to holding him down?”
Jimmy’s eyes were closed; that didn’t fool me for an instant. I wouldn’t put it past him to fake unconsciousness, then tear out my liver for lunch.
“I thought this was what you meant,” the Dagda said. “You didn’t actually expect me to use my hands when all I had to do was—” He lifted one huge shoulder. “Cuff him and be on your way.”
I hesitated. The fairy god gave an impatient huff. “My magic is not so weak. He will not move until I wish him to.”
I eyed the Dagda. That magic would be handy to have. However, when my gaze reached his codpiece, I changed my mind. Not happening.
My lip curled as I slid the ring over Jimmy’s flaccid penis. Halfway up I checked his face. His eyes were open—just as I’d suspected, not unconscious—and red still flared at the center. White lines radiated from his tight mouth, and tiny rivulets of blood ran down his chin as his fangs pricked his lips. He was furious. I hoped the Dagda’s magic held.
Springy pubic hair brushed my fingertips as the ring reached the base, and the red spark in Jimmy’s eyes went out like the flame of a snuffed candle. His fangs retracted equally fast, though the tension in his face did not dissipate. I recognized sadness instead of madness; the demon had successfully been caged.
“Let him go.”
“Are you certain?” the Dagda asked.
“Release him and leave us alone.”
“Very well.” The fairy god twirled his hand downward, as if executing a fancy upper-class bow, then ducked through the opening in the cave and disappeared.
I figured Jimmy would grab me—hit me, strangle me, or at least try—and I’d let him. Maybe it would help.
Instead, he got to his feet, then moved slowly to the shadows where he bent, picked up his clothes and started to dress.
“Don’t you want to—”
He whirled. “We already did, Elizabeth.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Because he does?”
I started. They were so different, the two Jimmys, yet also very much the same.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“You’re the one who wanted him back.”
“I didn’t want this, and you know it.”
“I know no such thing. You’re the leader. You make the rules.”
“I don’t. You know that too.”
He sighed and put on his T-shirt. A bright, tie-dyed kaleidoscope that advertised Sesame Street. I didn’t even want to ask.
“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry. It’s just—” His hands fell back to his sides like the arms of a puppet whose strings had been cut. “I hate being like that. Until I am and then I love it. The pain, the blood, the fear, it’s . . .” He drew a deep breath, in through his nose, then let it out through his mouth as if he was trying to calm himself, or perhaps trying to catch the scent of the blood, pain and fear. “Seductive,” he finished. “But later I remember. You know?”
I nodded, though he wasn’t looking at me. I knew. Boy, did I know.
“As soon as I’m me again, everything I did and said and—” His voice cracked; he swallowed, coughed, then lifted his hand and rubbed his face, freezing when he saw the streaks of dried blood.
“Shit.” He strode to the tiny basin where water still trickled merrily, and plunged his hands in to the wrists. “Are you okay?”
“Of course I’m okay. I’m just like you.”
“You’re a whole lot worse than me.”
I blinked, shocked to discover his words could still hurt. Since he faced away, scrubbing at his fingers like Lady Macbeth—I had a sudden flash of another cave, other water, but the same Jimmy, scrubbing frantically at blood that was already gone—he didn’t see my pain. I waited to speak until I was certain he wouldn’t hear it either.
“How you figure?”
“You’re a vampire and a skinwalker.” He paused momentarily in his scrubbing. “Anything else you’ve become while I was away?”
“No,” I said shortly. “And being a skinwalker doesn’t make me worse.”
“More powerful. That’s what I meant.”
“Sure you did.” He didn’t answer, just kept scrubbing at his hands. “Jimmy, I think they’re clean.”
“I doubt that,” he murmured, but he lifted them from the water and dried them on his pants. I didn’t point out that beneath the shirt advertising happy puppets he also had blood all over his chest. If I did, we’d never get out of here.
Unable to stop myself, I moved closer, and when he saw me coming he tensed.
“What do you think I’m going to do?” I asked.
“I don’t know.” He rubbed his palm over his chest as if it ached. I knew the feeling. “I miss you.”
“I’m right here.”
He shook his head. “When I look at you I remember the other you. I can’t bear to touch you or have you touch me. It used to be whenever I was tired or sad or sick I could bring out my memories of us and I’d be . . . better. But the bad ones seem to have drowned all the good ones. Now any memories of you make me—” He swallowed
I could fill in the blank. Memories of me made him sick.
“How did you get past it?” he asked. “What I did to you?”
For an instant what he’d done to me was right there—a kaleidoscope of horror. Then I gritted my teeth and I made it go away.
Lifting my chin, I met his eyes. “That wasn’t you.”
He snorted. “It is now.”
We weren’t getting anywhere. We might never get past what he’d done, what I’d done. So many people couldn’t, and they had less to forgive and forget than Sanducci and me.
“We should go,” I said.
“Lizzy,” he began, and I couldn’t help it; my heart lightened to hear him call me that again. “I’m sorry about before.”
At this rate we were going to be saying, I’m sorry, until the day that we died.
“I’m fine.” I lifted my wrist. “Healed right up.”
“I meant earlier. Out there.” He jerked his head at the opening of the cave, and his dark hair flew. “That thing inside me pretended to be . . . me, and I—”
“Your vamp fooled me,” I interrupted, not needing or wanting a replay. “I should know better. Not your fault.”
“You think that makes it easier on me? I can still see myself forcing you—”
“You didn’t force me; I wanted to.”
“You wanted me. This me.” He smacked himself in the chest again. He was really going to have to stop that. “But it wasn’t me.” He choked and stared at the ground where my blood still darkened the dirt. “That’s . . . fucked up,” he finished.
“What isn’t?”
His laughter was harsh, not quite vampire laughter but close. “It doesn’t bother you?”
To my amazement, it didn’t. I had so many other things to be bothered by.
“No,” I said, and his breath rushed out in a huff.
“Then you’re much more forgiving than I am.�
��
I doubted that. I’d held a grudge against him for a long, long time. Probably would still be holding one if I hadn’t been forcibly taught that there were a lot better issues to be angry about.
I crossed the short distance between us and reached for his hand. He flinched, but I took it anyway, then traced my thumb over the still-fading mark that circled his wrist.
Before I’d left, I’d seen what the Dagda would do to him, and it hadn’t involved any whips or chains. There’d been fire, I thought, perhaps a knife. Pain and blood, nothing was ever easy. But I hadn’t seen this.
I stroked my thumb over him again, breathed in, opened my mind . . . and I didn’t see anything at all.
I lifted my gaze. “What did he do to you?”
“Does it matter?”
It would always matter. There just wasn’t anything I could do about it. What had happened had happened. That I’d let it, that I’d basically ordered it, even if I hadn’t been the one to hurt him, did matter. I’d had the power to stop the horror, and I wouldn’t.
I understood that a lot of Jimmy’s anger, his inability to touch me and let me touch him, stemmed from the knowledge that if we had to do it all over again, I’d do the same thing.
Since I could practically feel his skin crawling beneath mine, I let him go. In this form, there was only so much torture I could stomach.
I had the ability to separate Vampire Jimmy and Dhampir Jimmy; I knew that what the first one did and said had nothing to do with the other. I thought Jimmy understood the same about Vamp Liz and Lizzy. I’m sure he did—in theory.
But men are visual, which is why porn really turns them on, and for women, who are emotional, not so much. So while I could separate the two Jimmys because of the way I felt about each one, even though they looked exactly the same, Jimmy might be having a bit of difficulty getting past his conflicting feelings over what appeared to be exactly the same woman.
The problem was that the Lizzy I’d been, the one he’d fallen in love with, was gone, and I didn’t think she was ever coming back. Which left a woman he didn’t know and one he didn’t like in the same package.
“There are things we have to do that we don’t want to do,” I began.
“You think I don’t know that? I was eighteen, Lizzy, when Ruthie made me—” He stopped and shoved a shaking hand through his sweaty, tangled hair.
Apocalypse Happens Page 16
