Ruthie wasn’t above smacking someone in the mouth for “smart talk,” “back talk,” “blasphemy” or pretty much anything she didn’t like. Her being dead hadn’t stopped the back of her hand from connecting with my face. It had hurt even if it had been in a vision. However, since Jimmy wasn’t able to channel the dead, he was probably safe.
“You need to convince Summer to reverse the spell,” I said.
Jimmy’s vampire had been pushed beneath the moon. In other words, he became a monster only when the moon was full. The other twenty-odd days, he was just Jimmy. Dangerous as hell, but not damn near unstoppable. Like me.
“She won’t.” His hands clenched on the steering wheel. “I don’t think she can.”
Summer Bartholomew was a fairy. Think life-sized Tinkerbell without the wings; add cowboy boots, a white hat and slutty clothes with a lot of fringe.
Summer and I hadn’t bonded well, mainly because she was head-over-heels, do-anything-and-everything in love with Jimmy. It hadn’t helped that when he’d left me the first time, he’d gone to her.
She was also the one responsible for the dog collar around my neck. Not that I didn’t need it, but couldn’t she have bespelled a nice silver chain, a diamond ear stud? Even a leather bracelet would have been better than what I had. But Summer had seen a way to infuriate me, and she’d taken it.
That I’d have done the exact same thing were I capable of performing magic didn’t lessen my irritation with her one bit. To make matters worse, Summer had performed a sex spell to confine Jimmy’s demon.
I know. I shouldn’t throw stones—sexual empath and all that—but the fairy annoyed me. Probably because several times when I’d touched her, or touched Jimmy, I’d seen them. Made me want to scrub out my brain with a gallon of scalding water and a whole lot of bleach.
“What’s so hard about it?” I asked. “Can’t she just . . . do you backward?”
“Apparently not,” Jimmy said.
“She’s refusing to reverse the spell because she knows that you don’t want her to.”
“I don’t, but that doesn’t mean I won’t. I think we need a bigger fairy.”
I’d been taking a sip from a tepid bottle of water I’d left in the car earlier. That sip sprayed all over the windshield. “What?”
His lips twitched. “A more powerful fairy.”
“There are grades of fairyness?”
“So Summer says.”
“Repeat that five times fast,” I muttered. “Where do we find a grade-A, top-of-the-line, more-powerful-than-Summer fairy?”
“You’re gonna have to ask her.”
“You didn’t?”
“I don’t want to go back to the way that I was.”
“You said you would.”
“I didn’t say I’d help.”
“Fine,” I snapped. I hated asking Summer for anything, but I was the leader of this merry band of demon killers, and Summer knew it. She’d tell me.
Or I’d make her. I kind of hoped she didn’t want to tell me.
“I really thought the Nephilim had the key,” I murmured. How else had they released the Grigori?
“It’s probably a good thing if they don’t.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to say, No shit, but I refrained.
“Do you know anything about the Book of Samyaza?” I asked.
Jimmy cast me a quick glance, his dark eyes unreadable in the eerie glow from the dash. We were headed toward LA; the press of the lights against the night made the sky luminescent and really kind of creepy.
“That’s a myth.”
“So are we.”
Every legendary tale of monsters from the dawn of time was true. They were Nephilim or breeds, but they were very, very real.
Remember Goliath—that giant of antiquity? Nephilim.
Vampires. Werewolves. Evil, dark scary things. Nephilim. Or, in some cases, breeds.
Witch hunts? They probably had the right idea but the wrong execution. Pardon the pun. You can’t kill witches just by drowning them. Most of them won’t even burn.
“Samyaza was the leader of the earthly angels,” I said.
“Satan,” Jimmy agreed. “Thrown into the pit. I don’t think he had time to write a book.”
“I think he had plenty of time to do a lot of things. According to Ruthie, he’s been whispering to the Nephilim from the beginning.”
“What’s he been whispering?”
“Revelatory prophecies for the other side.” I shrugged. “Instructions for winning this war.”
“And you’re saying someone wrote them down in the Book of Samyaza?”
“Yes.”
“Bullshit.”
“We got the Bible in pretty much the same way,” I pointed out.
“God whispering. Satan whispering.” Jimmy’s mouth twisted. “I don’t think that’s quite the same.”
“I suppose not.” I took a deep breath. “And there is one big difference.”
“What’s that?”
“According to legend, whoever possesses the Book of Samyaza is invincible.”
Jimmy chewed on his lower lip for a minute as he contemplated the steadily lightening night sky. “Then we’d damn straight better find it first.”
CHAPTER 4
I had a lot on my plate. Find the Book of Samyaza, even though no one had ever seen it.
Find the Key of Solomon—everyone who’d ever seen that was dead.