Inside the hogan all I could find was winter clothes—a plaid hunting shirt and heavy denim jeans. I’d swelter in them unless—
I yanked off the arms of the shirt—with my super-strength, I didn’t even need scissors—then I tore off the bottom half; I did the same to the jeans above the knees, leaving just enough material to cover the important parts. After the adjustments for the temperature, the items fit fairly well. Sawyer’s aura, his strength and power and wisdom, made him seem larger than he was. If not for the muscles on him and the hips and chest on me, we’d be the same size. I didn’t even have to loop twine through the belt loops before I rejoined the men outside.
Sawyer lifted his brows but didn’t comment on the destruction of his clothes. I was sure he had more somewhere and equally sure he rarely wore these. It would have to be a cold day in . . . the mountains before he deigned to put on a stitch.
Xander still stood within the circle. I joined Sawyer and murmured, “Can he move?”
“Move, yes,” Sawyer answered low enough so Xander couldn’t hear. “Leave, no.”
“Why?”
“We don’t know where he’s been, who he’s seen, what he’s been offered.”
“Offered?”
“There is a hell, Phoenix, and some of us will go there.”
I cast him a quick glance. He was working for the good guys—as far as I knew. Why was he worried about hell?
I opened my mouth to ask, but Sawyer kept talking. “You’ll agree to anything to avoid that.”
“Me personally, or the general ‘you’?”
Sawyer lifted a brow and didn’t bother.
“What’s the last thing you remember?” Sawyer took a step closer; Xander took a step back. His heel brushed the circle, and he drew in a sharp breath as he jerked it away. I scowled at Sawyer. The guy had been through enough.
Xander’s brow creased, which only served to remind me how uncreased his brow had been. Whitelaw was undoubtedly one of the youngest Ph.D.s in history, and I’d gotten him killed long before his time. Guilt flickered, but I was getting used to it.
“I called Miss Phoenix.” Xander’s dark, confused gaze met mine. I wanted to take his hand, say I was sorry, but as Sawyer had said, I didn’t know where Xander had been, what he’d agreed to, who he’d become.
Instead, I nodded encouragingly. “That’s right.”
“You were coming to see me.” He glanced around, and despite the press of darkness it was easy to tell that we weren’t in Indiana anymore. “Or did you say you were going to bring me to see you?”
I opened my mouth, then shut it again. Was I supposed to tell him what had happened? I didn’t want to.
“We brought you,” Sawyer said, which was technically true. We’d just left out the part where I’d gone to him first and he’d been dead.
“Fascinating,” Xander murmured.
“You said you had information for me,” I reminded him.
“I do. Yes.” The professor lifted his hand, rubbing his forehead as if he could make the information within tumble free. “The Book of Samyaza.”
Sawyer and I exchanged a glance. Double damn. I was really hoping that was a myth.
“You found it?”
“No. There are so many rumors, but not a single solid clue as to its whereabouts or even what it looks like.”
“Swell.”
“Relax, Phoenix,” Sawyer murmured. “That means they don’t know anything about it either.”
“Or they’re better at keeping secrets than we are.”
“If they knew what it looked like or where it was, they’d have it and we’d all be—” Sawyer flipped his dark, supple hands over so that the palms faced the starry night sky.
“Cannon fodder,” I muttered.
“Would you like to know what I learned about the Key of Solomon?” Xander smiled.
I straightened. “Where is it?”
“The key is with the Phoenix.”
I’d heard that before. It didn’t make me any happier this time.
“I don’t have it,” I said.
“Not you. An actual phoenix.”
“Say what?”
“A legendary ancient Egyptian bird.”
“I know what it is,” I muttered. “A myth.”
Xander’s gaze went to Sawyer. “Myths aren’t so mythical anymore.”
Everything I’d ever considered legendary—werewolves, vampires, ghosts, you name it—was a helluva lot more real than I was comfortable with.
“We have to go to Egypt?” I asked. “That’s gonna take a while.”
Xander, who’d seemed so with it, suddenly didn’t. His face crumpled; he began to blink as if trying to recall something that was long gone.
“Xander?” I said, alarmed. “You okay?”
“Give him time,” Sawyer murmured. “It isn’t easy to walk between worlds.”
Xander stopped blinking. “I was at my office,” he said. “And I heard footsteps. I thought it was you—”
“But it wasn’t. Did you see who—?”
Xander shook his head. I wasn’t surprised. Ghosts don’t know who killed them, which is often what makes them ghosts.