Jimmy shook his head. “But that doesn’t mean one wasn’t there.”
We were looking for a traitor. Was it possible that we’d found him already, and that he’d been killed by accident?
No.
“There won’t be any explanation for hyena fur,” I mussed. Or any other type of fur for that matter. Ruthie hadn’t even owned a dog.
“Won’t be our problem. We’ll be long gone.”
Jimmy hit the on ramp and accelerated, heading west past Madison instead of south toward home. I’d known he would, yet I still tensed at the proof of it.
“I don’t want to go there, Jimmy,” I said quietly.
“I know.”
“Then don’t make me.”
At first he didn’t speak, though his fingers tightened on the steering wheel. “In a different world, I wouldn’t. But I need to talk to him, and you need to stay with him.”
“Stay?” My voice squeaked. “No. You can’t— I can’t—”
“You have to learn how to control your new ability. Ruthie would have taught you, but she’s gone.”
“She’s not gone,” I said desperately. “She could teach me—” I spread my hands. “In my dreams.”
He was already shaking his head. “We don’t have time to wait around on the off chance that might happen. You know he’s the best at training, otherwise Ruthie would never have sent you there in the first place.”
No matter how much I argued, there would always be that truth.
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Jimmy said, “but as of right now only by touching something do you get any communication from the Great Beyond.”
“I had a dream.”
“You and Dr. King,” he muttered. “Bet they weren’t the same.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and stared out the window.
Jimmy sighed. “You have to learn to access your power without touching the Nephilim. It’s too dangerous. The only chance I see of making that happen is to take you to Sawyer.”
I made one last attempt to thwart the inevitable. “He frightens me.”
At first, I didn’t think Jimmy was going to acknowledge my words; then he spoke softly into the darkness. “He frightens me too.”
Chapter 13
After that, there wasn’t much left to say. Jimmy was going to deliver me to New Mexico. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t been dumped there before.
The summer I was fifteen, Ruthie had handed me a plane ticket and driven me to Mitchell Field. She’d walked me to the gate— pre-9/11 people could still do that—and sent me on my way with a hug and the admonition to “learn all you can. This man knows what he’s about.” But her frown and the way she’d clung just a little had made me uneasy before 1 even boarded the plane.
One of Ruthie’s friends picked me up and drove me the rest of the way. The woman appeared as old as Ruthie—probably sixty back then, but in my youth I’d figured she had one foot in the grave. She was Navajo— her face sun-bronzed and lined, her hair black and long with only a few silver threads. Her hands, clutched tightly on the wheel of her dusty tan station wagon, looked like monkey’s paws—shriveled, bony, and dark.
Her name was Lucinda, but I only knew that because Ruthie had told me, then Lucinda had nodded when I asked. She never spoke a word between Albuquerque and the reservation.
I wondered how they knew each other, when they’d met, but I didn’t ask. I was too worried about where I was going and this man I was about to meet. But now, looking back and knowing what I know, I think Lucinda was a seer too.
She’d pulled up in front of a house and outbuildings at the base of the mountains, motioned for me to get out, and when I did, she’d left in a big hurry, spraying dust and gravel behind her. I’d been too young and clueless to be disturbed by her behavior. I’d figured Lucinda was late for… something. It hadn’t occurred to me that she might be running before she caught sight of Sawyer—or perhaps before he caught sight of her.
I discovered quickly that while Sawyer might know what he was about, he was also withdrawn, bleak, secretive. Though it was a relief to meet someone who was actually “weirder” than I was, it was also a bit frightening. He had powers beyond anything I’d ever encountered. I’d been fascinated by him.
At first.
The memories of New Mexico faded as Jimmy and I left Wisconsin, crossing over the Mississippi and into Iowa. On both sides of the river, the terrain was hilly, with high bluffs and lots of craggy rock formations. Within the hour it would flatten into corn fields as far as the eye could see, dotted here by a farm and there with a tiny town.
“You want me to drive?” I asked.
Jimmy snorted. “If I let you behind the wheel, we’d end up in Canada instead of New Mexico.”
“I wouldn’t—” His dark eyes pinned me, and I didn’t bother to argue any longer. He was right. I probably would sabotage this little road trip if given half the chance. I wouldn’t be able to stop myself.
“What happened to my car?” I asked.
“Switched it with this one. Don’t worry, it’ll be there when you get back.”