“What’s a nuckelavee?” I asked.
“Thane is part Scottish Fuath fairy.”
“Keep going.”
“The Fuath are evil Gaelic water spirits.”
“He’s evil?” I remembered the icy touch of his breath.
“No. He’s a breed like me. His father was a Fuath, his mother human.”
“His powers?”
“Vampire breath that causes people, plants and animals to wither and die.”
No wonder my skin had ached, but it took more than vampire breath to kill me.
“He can also shape-shift,” Jimmy continued. “Half man, half horse.”
“So a nuckelavee is a vampire, a shifter and a fairy?”
“Pretty much.”
“How do we kill one?”
Jimmy blinked. “Why would we want to kill him? He’s on our side.”
“So were you once, and then—shazaam—you weren’t.”
Jimmy scowled and didn’t answer.
To be fair, his disloyalty hadn’t been voluntary or permanent. He’d been captured, tortured and turned into a vampire against his will. But Jimmy had found his way back. He was as loyal now as I was.
I hoped.
“I need to know how to kill supernatural beings,” I continued. “What if I encounter a nuckelavee who chose the other side?”
Jimmy sighed. “Freshwater repels them.”
“Water repels a water spirit?”
“Half water spirit. If you cross a stream, they can’t follow.”
“I’ll remember that if one’s ever chasing me and I’m lucky enough to discover a stream nearby. But wait!” I put up one finger to signal a brilliant idea. “What if I just kill it? If only I knew how.”
“Steel.”
“Fairy. Right. Shit!” I smacked my fist against the dashboard.
“What?” Jimmy looked around, one hand tightening on the steering wheel, the other going for the silver switchblade he took everywhere he went.
“If I’d known he was a fairy,” I said, “I could have asked him where to find a dagda.”
Jimmy relaxed. “Oops.”
“Any other way to kill a nuckelavee?”
“Not that I know of.”
“How about a Fuath fairy?”
“Sunlight.”
“Really? Yet their offspring walks in the daytime.”
“So do we,” Jimmy said.
“Your father was a day walker.”
Certain vampires—considered inferior by the rest of the vampire legion—couldn’t go out in the sun. Others—like Jimmy, me, his daddy—were day walkers. We could go out whenever the hell we wanted to.
“There’s no rhyme or reason to this stuff,” Jimmy said. “You know that.”
For the rest of the trip, Jimmy kept the radio turned up so high there could be no possibility of a conversation, and I let him. Whenever we talked lately someone got hurt. Usually me.
Brownport appeared on the horizon. The highway bled into Main Street, lined by the usual businesses necessary for a small college town.
The school, bordered by fields, stood at the far end of Brownport. We pulled into the only parking lot, and I pointed to the administration building, which housed all the faculty offices.
Stalks of corn swayed in the heated afternoon breeze. Jimmy followed me to the door. It was locked. A note said the campus was closed until the fall semester, still a few weeks away. The last time I’d been here, summer school had been in session. Not a lot of kids, but some. The place hadn’t felt so— “Dead,” Jimmy murmured.
I frowned. I was getting a really bad feeling. I used my cell to call Xander, but he didn’t answer.
“Open it,” I ordered.
Jimmy punched his fist through the glass. By the time he’d reached in and flipped the lock, the cuts had already healed.
Inside, the building hadn’t changed a bit. The walls needed painting. There were water stains and cracks. I still didn’t know where they kept the elevator, but even if I had, I wouldn’t have bothered. I ran up the three flights of stairs with Jimmy right behind me.
Whitelaw’s door stood open; light spilled into the hallway. “Xander!” I shouted as I skidded on the ancient yellowed tile.
He didn’t answer, but he liked to listen to his iPod while working. Guns N’ Roses. Despite his button-down shirts and khaki trousers, or maybe because of them, Whitelaw badly wanted to be a rebel.
I slipped as I neared the office, thought for an instant the roof was leaking again, though from the crackly state of the grass outside there’d been no rain for several weeks.
I glanced down. A trickle of crimson spread over the threshold like a tiny creek running south. I palmed my knife and went in.
The walls were decorated with blood, as was the floor, the desk, the books, the papers and what was left of Xander Whitelaw.
Jimmy, coming up fast to the rear, bumped into me. I threw an elbow. Couldn’t help myself. When someone came at me from behind, I reacted.
Blame it on the foster-care system. I did.
“Oof,” Jimmy said, his breath stirring my hair. “That him?”