Luther’s gaze went to Faith as she began to shred the curtains just for fun. “Who do you think she’ll become? Someone good, or someone bad?”
I frowned. I hadn’t thought about that. I guess it depended on who her mother was. I wished I knew. But wishing had always done me about as much good as crying—which meant no damn good at all.
“What if she’s—?” Luther stopped, pressing his lips together as if to keep a secret from tumbling out. Then he got quickly to his feet, startling the kitten so badly she scrambled backward, hissing. But when she recognized Luther, she quieted, and she didn’t shred him when he picked her up and sheltered her in his long, gangly arms.
“The Antichrist?” I finished.
Luther’s grip tightened. “You’re not killing her. I won’t let you.”
I sighed. If I could save the world from annihilation by drowning a baby, would I? I wasn’t sure, and that I wasn’t freaked me out so much I started grasping at any straw I could find.
“Sawyer wanted me to protect her,” I blurted. “He wouldn’t protect evil.”
“Sawyer’s . . . Sawyer,” Luther countered. “I don’t know what he’d do, and I don’t think you do, either. His mother was one of the psycho-est psychos ever. Who knows how badly she fucked him up.”
“Language,” I murmured, hating to admit that Luther was right. “The Nephilim sent those guys to kill her. Why would they pay for someone to off their future leader?”
“Are you sure the Nephilim sent them?”
I rubbed my forehead. The kid was starting to get on my nerves.
“I refuse to accept that anyone on the side of light would send assassins after a baby.” Not that I didn’t think they might; I just refused to accept it.
“The only way to know who wants her dead is to find out who she’ll become, and the only one who knows that is—”
“Sawyer,” I finished. “Which brings me back to the original plan—find Sanducci, dump the baby with him for safekeeping, then head for the hills.”
Luther stood. “Let’s do it.”
Since we’d showered the night before, we were dressed and gone in ten. Would have been five if Luther hadn’t thought to take Faith for a walk in the tall grass.
I had no worry that she’d dart off and we’d never see her again. She followed Luther around like an adoring little sister. Did her kitten sense his cub?
Once Faith was finished, we found the nearest McDonald’s drive-through, then hit the road. In this form Faith was easier to deal with—no crying, no bottle, no begging for her binkie, no fighting against the car seat.
She turned her nose up at the pancakes but devoured her sausage patties as well as mine, then lapped water out of a cup and settled into Luther’s lap to play with the sunbeams that traced across his jeans. When she got bored she trailed into the backseat, and the next time I looked her way she was asleep.
Being a kitten had to be easier than being a baby as well. She could move. She could eat food. She could pretty much do whatever the hell she wanted. I didn’t blame her for crying while in human form. It had to suck to find herself in the body of a frail child after she’d experienced the freedom that came from becoming a quick and clever little cat.
Six hours later we pulled off the highway and stared at a whole lot of empty. Called maco sica by the Lakota, or “land bad”—very original—the region was the epitome of desolation. Buttes and spires, canyons and gullies stretched in a seemingly unending stream toward the horizon.
“How, exactly, are we going to find Sanducci in the middle of that?” Luther asked.
From what I’d read on the Internet last night, the Badlands consisted of 244,000 square miles of constantly eroding sediment. So massive, so silent, so intimidating they went beyond creepy. Considering what I’d seen in the last several months, that was saying a lot.
The Badlands were also quite pretty. The erosion had revealed every color of the earth and sky. Purple and yellow, tan and gray, red, orange, and white—when the sun hit the land just right, the place called maco sica was nothing short of exquisite.
“I’m not sure how to find him,” I admitted.
“We just drove for two days,” Luther said, “and you’re not sure?”
“Any word from Ruthie?”
Closing his eyes, Luther tilted his head. I caught my breath, but when Luther opened his eyes, they remained hazel instead of brown.
“I called, she didn’t answer.” Luther shrugged. “Sometimes she does that. Usually when she’s already told me what I need to know.”
I’m only gonna say somethin’ once; you’d best listen.
A Ruthie-ism she rarely, if ever, broke. Which meant she’d told me where Jimmy was; I’d just been too preoccupied to hear it.
“Take the cat for a walk and let me think,” I ordered.
Luther and Faith disappeared into the dry grass; I sat on the hood of the Impala and racked my brain.
Jimmy had been sent to the Badlands to deal with a nest of Iyas.