I clenched and unclenched my fingers, dazzled by the thought of beating it out of him. As if I could, but right now it was so appealing to try.
“Certain things you have to figure out for yourself,” he continued. “Certain choices must be made from . . .”—he took a final drag of the cigarette and tossed it out the window—“the heart.”
“Gibberish,” I muttered again.
“Take it or leave it.”
He was trying to tell me something. So why didn’t he just tell me? Maybe he couldn’t.
I crossed the floor. “What happened after she died?”
He didn’t answer, so I laid my hand on his back, careful to avoid any legs, heads or tails, and wonder of wonders, he continued to let me see.
Lightning rains all around them, slamming into the ground, leaving behind scorched earth and the scent of ozone. The rain pounds down, drenching them, though they are already drenched. Sawyer lifts his hands to the sky, in anguish, in fury, and the lightning . . .
Strikes him.
His outline sizzles, neon white and blue. He shape-shifts; a man reaching upward hunches into a great tarantula. When the light fades, a new tattoo traces one forearm. Again he reaches; again the lightning answers. Man to shark, leaving behind the likeness on his shoulder. Several more times the lightning flashes and when it fades a new tattoo is in place.
When at last he drops his hands, then sinks to his knees in what is now mud, every tattoo he had when I first met him is stenciled into his skin, and he’s become the sorcerer he never wanted to be.
The storm wanes as he loses consciousness, the thunder dies, the rain slows to a drizzle, then stops completely, burned away by the return of the sun, leaving two bodies on the muddy banks of the mountain lake—one breathing, one not.
When Sawyer awakens, he rolls away, unable to bear looking at her. He’s dreamed of her death, of holding her beneath the water until her life drains away, even as more power than he’s ever imagined flows into him. He is haunted by the glittering dazzle of the magic, tempted by all the possibilities that are now his. He doesn’t want this power, but there’s no giving it back.
He shifts into a wolf and runs. Then he runs and runs and runs. He hunts; he kills; he doesn’t come back for months. By then her body is gone. He tries not to think of her ever again, but he does. Every time he sees— Sawyer turned, grabbing my wrist and holding my hand away from his skin. “Enough,” he said.
I stared into his face. Had he thought of her every time he’d seen me? Had he felt her skin every time he’d touched mine?
Sawyer had loved Maria Phoenix. Did he still, even though the woman who’d risen from the grave was a far cry from the woman who’d gone into it? Which side was he truly trying to infiltrate? Hers or ours? I might never know. He certainly wasn’t going to tell me.
“You didn’t need me to bring the storm, did you?” I tugged on my wrist; he didn’t let me go. “You could always do it by yourself.”
“Not always,” he murmured, and released me.
“How did she end up buried in Cairo?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” Sawyer crossed to the bed and found his trousers.
“You were good; she went bad,” I said. “It wasn’t your fault.”
He stood there, holding his pants in one hand as if he weren’t sure what to do with them.
“Jimmy thinks you hung around, doing just enough to be considered one of us so you’d be ready to join her when she rose.”
“Sanducci thinks a lot of things.” Sawyer shrugged one shoulder, the muscles rippling like water beneath. “He’s often right.”
“You had to do it,” I said. “She tried to kill Ruthie.”
“Did she?”
“What?” The word erupted, too loud, too high.
“Perhaps Ruthie merely needed a sorcerer, and she needed one fast.”
“You think she played you?”
“She isn’t above it. Ruthie’s played us all; she’s played you.”
“It’s a far cry from making me think Sanducci didn’t love me to having you kill someone.”
“Not that far.”
“Your morals are skewed.”
“Pot. Kettle,” he murmured.
I let that slide. “Ruthie had the feather.”
“So?”
“And a wound.”
He snorted.
“You seriously think she stuck herself with a knife and bled, then lied about it as she ordered you to kill the woman you loved just so you would become the great and powerful Sawyer?”
He let out a long, low, sad breath. “Maybe.”
“You’ve been listening to the evil voices in your head.”
His gaze narrowed. “What evil voices?”
Whoops. That was me.
“I’m just saying—where in hell do you get this stuff?”
He glanced at the door, then back.
“Her?” I asked. “She’s insane, or haven’t you noticed?”
“Waking up in a grave and having to dig your way out will do that.”
I was pretty sure the Phoenix had been crazy long before she’d clawed her way out from under, but that was beside the point at the moment. At the moment I had a bigger, better point that needed clarifying.
“Did you raise her?”