“I’d be disappointed if you did.” I glanced at the Dagda. “Wanna hold him down?”
The fairy god’s gaze remained on Jimmy. “I thought you’d never ask.”
CHAPTER 20
I could probably have done it myself, but it would have taken longer and, as the Dagda had pointed out, Jimmy, in this form, didn’t care if he killed me, himself, everyone—if there was anyone—in a fifty-mile radius. He’d enjoy it. While I had to worry about what would happen to the world if I died, if he did, and carry the guilt if Jimmy ripped out the Dagda’s throat and took a shower in his blood.
Jimmy backed up, gaze flicking from the fairy god to me several times. “He won’t like this,” Jimmy said, referring, I assumed, to the Jimmy who waited on the other side of “this.”
“I don’t care.” A lie. I cared, but I had no choice.
Jimmy whirled to run; I tensed to chase. The Dagda threw up one hand like a crossing guard miming stop, and Jimmy crumpled to the ground.
“Hey!” I hurried to Sanducci’s side. “What happened to holding him down?”
Jimmy’s eyes were closed; that didn’t fool me for an instant. I wouldn’t put it past him to fake unconsciousness, then tear out my liver for lunch.
“I thought this was what you meant,” the Dagda said. “You didn’t actually expect me to use my hands when all I had to do was—” He lifted one huge shoulder. “Cuff him and be on your way.”
I hesitated. The fairy god gave an impatient huff. “My magic is not so weak. He will not move until I wish him to.”
I eyed the Dagda. That magic would be handy to have. However, when my gaze reached his codpiece, I changed my mind. Not happening.
My lip curled as I slid the ring over Jimmy’s flaccid penis. Halfway up I checked his face. His eyes were open—just as I’d suspected, not unconscious—and red still flared at the center. White lines radiated from his tight mouth, and tiny rivulets of blood ran down his chin as his fangs pricked his lips. He was furious. I hoped the Dagda’s magic held.
Springy pubic hair brushed my fingertips as the ring reached the base, and the red spark in Jimmy’s eyes went out like the flame of a snuffed candle. His fangs retracted equally fast, though the tension in his face did not dissipate. I recognized sadness instead of madness; the demon had successfully been caged.
“Let him go.”
“Are you certain?” the Dagda asked.
“Release him and leave us alone.”
“Very well.” The fairy god twirled his hand downward, as if executing a fancy upper-class bow, then ducked through the opening in the cave and disappeared.
I figured Jimmy would grab me—hit me, strangle me, or at least try—and I’d let him. Maybe it would help.
Instead, he got to his feet, then moved slowly to the shadows where he bent, picked up his clothes and started to dress.
“Don’t you want to—”
He whirled. “We already did, Elizabeth.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“Because he does?”
I started. They were so different, the two Jimmys, yet also very much the same.
“Yes,” I whispered.
“You’re the one who wanted him back.”
“I didn’t want this, and you know it.”
“I know no such thing. You’re the leader. You make the rules.”
“I don’t. You know that too.”
He sighed and put on his T-shirt. A bright, tie-dyed kaleidoscope that advertised Sesame Street. I didn’t even want to ask.
“Yeah,” he said. “Sorry. It’s just—” His hands fell back to his sides like the arms of a puppet whose strings had been cut. “I hate being like that. Until I am and then I love it. The pain, the blood, the fear, it’s . . .” He drew a deep breath, in through his nose, then let it out through his mouth as if he was trying to calm himself, or perhaps trying to catch the scent of the blood, pain and fear. “Seductive,” he finished. “But later I remember. You know?”
I nodded, though he wasn’t looking at me. I knew. Boy, did I know.
“As soon as I’m me again, everything I did and said and—” His voice cracked; he swallowed, coughed, then lifted his hand and rubbed his face, freezing when he saw the streaks of dried blood.
“Shit.” He strode to the tiny basin where water still trickled merrily, and plunged his hands in to the wrists. “Are you okay?”
“Of course I’m okay. I’m just like you.”
“You’re a whole lot worse than me.”
I blinked, shocked to discover his words could still hurt. Since he faced away, scrubbing at his fingers like Lady Macbeth—I had a sudden flash of another cave, other water, but the same Jimmy, scrubbing frantically at blood that was already gone—he didn’t see my pain. I waited to speak until I was certain he wouldn’t hear it either.
“How you figure?”
“You’re a vampire and a skinwalker.” He paused momentarily in his scrubbing. “Anything else you’ve become while I was away?”
“No,” I said shortly. “And being a skinwalker doesn’t make me worse.”