I trailed my hand along the face, first to the right, then back to the left until I found the opening. Seconds later I found Jimmy.
His back to me, he contemplated the fire. Water trickled down the stone wall, dropping bead by bead into a tiny bowl just big enough to wash your hands. Shoulders slumped, head hanging, he worried me.
“Hey.” I came up behind him slowly. “You okay?”
When I got closer I saw the welts across his back, as if he’d been whipped with chains of gold. I was surprised I hadn’t felt them when I’d run my fingers over his skin. Though they were fading fast, already more like red lines from a minor accident than raised welts from a serious injury.
I stepped closer still and discovered similar marks on his wrists, around his neck and waist and ankles. I drew in a shaky breath as I reached out to run a gentle finger along his shoulder. My hand trembled.
“Ah, Jimmy,” I began.
He spun around with that freaky dhampir speed, grabbing my wrist and yanking me close. His eyes flared bright red.
“Gotcha,” he said, and then he bit me.
CHAPTER 19
He went for my wrist and not my neck. The dog collar was good for more than decoration and keeping my demon on a leash. It protected my jugular from out-of-control vamps. Lucky me.
Perhaps I should have Summer bespell one of those black leather collars with spikes. That would work even better, and in truth, this bejeweled poodley thing was just embarrassing.
Jimmy latched onto the vein in my wrist and without thinking I reached over with my free hand and smacked him upside the head. I didn’t pull my punch—why would I?—and he flew a few feet. Unfortunately, he took some of my arm with him.
Blood arced through the air, decorating the dirt between where I stood and where he fell. I had an instant to wish I’d knocked him into next week, or at least into the wall, before he started to laugh.
The blood dripping down my hand, off the tips of my fingers and into the ground slowed from a torrent to a drip. A quick glance at the wound revealed it had begun to close, but not with the usual creepy speed, the skin growing back together between one blink and the next. Wounds made by a Nephilim always took longer to heal, and right now Jimmy was one of the bad guys.
I returned my gaze to Jimmy as he wiped the back of his hand across his mouth, smearing red from his chin to his cheek. Wow. Attractive.
“The Dagda did what I asked,” I said.
“Did you think he wouldn’t?” Jimmy climbed to his feet, no worse for a knock in the head. If he’d been human, I’d have rattled his brains. He might not have gotten back up. Too bad he’d never been human. “You’re queen of the world, Elizabeth.”
My mouth tightened. He knew I hated it when he called me Elizabeth, but protesting would only encourage him to do it more. Besides, did I really want him calling me Lizzy or baby in that mocking evil voice?
Hell no.
“Not queen,” I murmured, my gaze darting left, then right, hoping to catch a glimpse of a bracelet, a ring, another collar, any item the Dagda might have bespelled to control this thing. Except—
Jimmy, when he was Jimmy, would never have taken it off.
“Leader, ruler, blah, blah, blah.” Jimmy lifted one hand to his chest and rubbed my blood into his skin. I looked away again. I hated him like this.
So what, exactly, did it mean that Jimmy was evil and there was no trace of a control? No trace of the Dagda either for that matter.
“Fuck.”
Jimmy grinned and licked his lips. I caught a hint of fang. “I love it when you talk dirty. Do it some more.”
If Jimmy had killed the fairy god before he’d created a leash we had more problems than . . . Well, just about anything.
“Where’s the Dagda?” I demanded.
“You think I . . .”—he skimmed his hand over his belly, leaving another trail of red—“have more power than a fairy god?”
“Yes.”
He laughed again. I’d always despised his vampire laugh. Cold, with not an ounce of humor, mocking and—okay, I’ll admit it—downright scary. That laugh made me want to put my hands over my ears and shriek until he stopped.
“You know I don’t have that much juice, Elizabeth. But you might.”
My eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”
“You want all his power on top of your own? Baby—”
“Shut up,” I snapped, unable to stop myself. “Don’t call me that.”
“Because he does?”
I blinked. This was the first time I could remember him referring to Dhampir Jimmy as a separate entity from Vampire Jimmy. Myself, I had to agree. They were two different beings. But when Jimmy had been evil before, he’d been completely evil, with no hint of the man who was not. In fact, when I’d tried to seduce the old Jimmy free by bringing up happy memories of our pasts, the new one had hurt me until I stopped.
“Why the seduction?” I asked. I’d had a good reason. He didn’t.
“I get bored with always taking what I want. Sometimes it’s fun to make them want me.”
“Them?”