“How is it that you knew this one?”
Luther’s lips curved. “I’ve been ’round a long time, Lizbeth. You’d be surprised at what I know.”
“Probably not,” I muttered. What I wished was that along with Ruthie’s power, she’d also passed on all she’d learned. It would have saved everyone a lot of hassle.
“Boudas are from Africa,” I pointed out. “What are they doing here?”
“There are things all over the place that don’t belong. When the Grigori first arrived, Africans lived in Africa, but they don’t anymore. Or at least that’s no longer the only place to find someone with the DNA of a matriarchal witch from the ancient country of Bouda.”
I rubbed my forehead. “So there’s no telling what kinds of beasties are going to crop up now that the Grigori are back.”
“No. The Grigori might not even know what they’re creating.”
“They won’t care as long as it’s bad.”
“Everything they bring forth is gonna be bad,” Ruthie-Luther said. “The Grigori are pure evil. They’re injecting a strain of wickedness into the population that hasn’t been seen since the fall. I have no doubt that there’ll be Nephilim created now that haven’t ever walked the earth before.”
“And we’ll have no clue how to end them.” Not that I had much of a clue as it was.
“We need to come up with a new plan,” Ruthie said.
“What’s wrong with the old one? Kill them all, ruin Doomsday.”
“That’s been workin’ real well so far.”
Sarcasm. Goody.
“Doomsday was set in motion when the leader of the darkness killed the leader of the light,” Ruthie continued. “Me.”
“Doomsday being a period of chaos that leads up to the final battle between good and evil.”
“Armageddon,” Ruthie agreed.
“But in the interim, the Grigori are released from the pit of hell and repopulate the world with Nephilim.”
“Creating the army to fight that great battle.”
“What do the Grigori even look like?” I asked.
As far as I knew no one had seen any yet, which was just plain weird.
Sawyer had been silent, but now he chimed in. “The Grigori are chaos spirits. They look like whomever they’ve possessed.”
“Across the globe,” Ruthie said, “there’s been a significant increase in possession and insanity, a rash of rapes, suicides, murders and unexplained deaths.”
I’d heard this already—on the television, the radio, the streets. Chaos spirits were spreading chaos. It was what they did.
I imagined all the innocent people who didn’t understand what was happening. Hearing voices that told them to do horrible things, having dreams of murder and mayhem, of violent sex with a stranger, or even someone they knew, then waking up covered in blood the next day or pregnant the next month, and the only clue was the memory of that horrible dream.
What if someone you trusted, loved, suddenly became violent, abusive, evil? What if they hurt you or your children? What if you began to see someone else behind eyes that should have been familiar? Would you think you were crazy or that they were?
I shivered. Doomsday, chaos, Apocalypse—they were all the same thing. A time when the surreal became real. Horror became commonplace. The beginning of the end.
They were now.
“I haven’t seen anything strange, felt anyone”—I moved my hands helplessly—“weird.”
“You’ve been a little busy with eclipse demons,” Ruthie said. “Among other things.”
“Wouldn’t the Grigori attack us?”
Luther’s head shook. “They leave that to the Nephilim. Right now, all the Grigori are concerned with is making more supernatural half demons. They don’t want to bring themselves to the attention of the DKs or the seers and have their fun interrupted.”
“How is it that we’ve got a shitload of Nephililm running around,” I asked, “and the Grigori have only been free a few weeks?”
Ruthie frowned. “I don’t follow.”
“Nephilim are born of demon and human. Being born takes a while. Usually nine months.”
“Only breeds and . . .”—she paused and jerked her chin in Sawyer’s direction, which I took to include those who were “other” as well, “other” being offspring of two Nephilim—“are literally born of a woman as children who grow and become something different. Nephilim are created; they spring forth fully grown.”
“Spring forth how?” I asked, imagining all sorts of bad things.
“Many ways.” When Ruthie didn’t elaborate, I knew that most of the bad things in my head were true. They usually were.
“How do we kill the Grigori?” I blurted.
“We can’t kill them,” Sawyer said. “They’re demons.”
“So are the Nephilim. We’ve been killing them since they were invented.”
“Nephilim are half demons. It’s their humanity that allows them to die.”
“You’re saying we’re screwed?” What else was new? “That we just keep killing the demon seed but we can never end the demons themselves?”