Intent on his kill, he didn’t pay attention to my legs. I twined them with his, yanked, and he flipped onto his back, taking me and the splintered table leg with him.
“Go ahead,” the Strega urged, his voice the hiss of the serpent in the garden, temptation incarnate, evil down through the ages. “You know that you want to. They all died because of him. She died because of him.”
“He didn’t know.” I muttered. “You made him do it.”
“Technically, it wasn’t me. I had to hire that out. But… she’s still dead.”
My fingers tightened on the stake.
“Do it,” the Strega whispered, his excitement shimmering in the air like the sun across the morning dew. “I’ll make you my concubine queen: together we’ll rule this rock.”
I was torn. There was killing Jimmy because I had no other choice or because he really, really needed killing. And there was killing him because this creature wanted me to, because killing him would make me his concubine queen.
Who talked like that?
“To end a dhampir you must strike twice in the same place—once for each nature, human and vampire.”
Was he telling the truth? Considering his method and Sawyer’s legend were remarkably similar, I had to think so. Since I didn’t have a better plan, I tightened my fingers around the wood and plunged the stake into Jimmy’s chest.
He gave a gasp that was more like a shriek, and I almost lost my nerve. How could I do this to him? Though I knew in my head I had to, my own heart was aching as badly as his must be.
But I’d gone too far to stop now. Thankfully, when 1 yanked the stake out, he went limp. Blood pattered onto the floor like rain.
“Once more.” The Strega had moved closer, but not close enough. “I’ll be invincible.”
“I—I can’t.” I made my voice tremble. It wasn’t hard. The sight of that hole in Jimmy’s chest made me want to do a lot more than tremble. “Not when he’s unconscious. It’s—”
“Inhuman?” The Strega’s voice wavered too, but with amusement.
“Unsportsmanlike,” I corrected.
“You make it sound like this is a game.” He was closer still. “You will be the most wonderful queen. If you just do what you’re told.”
There was something off in that reasoning, but with him there usually was.
“I can’t,” I repeated.
He slithered closer; he was right behind me. “Do it, or he’ll do you. You’ll scream like Ruthie did, but in the end you’ll die. Just like she did.”
Ah, well, maybe I could.
I lifted the stake, but instead of striking forward, into Jimmy, I flipped it so the pointy end faced away; then I slammed it backward with all that I had.
“Oof,” said the Strega.
I twisted the stake, ground it in as far as it would go before I stood to face him and pulled it out.
The stake wouldn’t kill him, only Jimmy could, but it would slow him down long enough so that maybe I could get away. And if I did, if I could rally those left on my side, maybe one of them would know another way to end this guy.
I also had high hopes of planting the pointy end in Jimmy’s chest for the second strike, permanently ending him. But, as usual, my plan didn’t work quite the way I’d thought.
The Strega staggered backward until his shoulders met the wall of windows. Behind him, the sun set, turning the sky to crimson flame.
He looked down at the gaping hole in his chest. Blood poured out in a fountain, splashing onto the floor and washing over his feet.
“Blood of my blood,” he said, in a horrible, gurgling howl.
Then he disintegrated. One minute he was bleeding, the next he was blood, a river flowing across the tile. I’d never seen anything like it. I hoped I never saw anything like it again.
“What the hell?” I stared at the stake.
Blood of his blood, Ruthie whispered. Abilities shared.
I glanced at the ceiling. “Today you get chatty?”
But she did have a point, one I hadn’t considered.
My empathetic abilities allowed me to absorb the powers of those I had sex with, and one of Jimmy’s powers was that he could kill the Strega.
Now I had to kill him.
I hurried back, intent on finishing this before I thought too much about what I was doing, but as I leaned over Jimmy, he opened his eyes. He moved so fast, I couldn’t get away.
I tensed for the pain as his teeth tore into me, but it didn’t come. Instead he wrapped his arms around my waist, pressed his cheek to my stomach, and whispered in a voice so broken I ached: “Lizzy.”
Chapter 40
The weapon tumbled from my suddenly senseless fingers.
Jimmy tilted his face, the anguish there almost too much to bear. “Oh, God, baby, it was me. My fault Ruthie died. My fault all of it.”
Well, yeah. But since when did he care?
Tentatively I stepped back. He clutched at me like a child. “Let me see,” I whispered.
The big hole in his chest had healed, though the skin was still puckered and red.
“It wasn’t you.” I smoothed my palm over his hair. “You didn’t know.”