I glanced at Jimmy, but his eyes revealed nothing. How could he believe I’d bring a child into this world with anyone but—
I cut that thought off before it showed all over my face. What Jimmy and I had once had—a love so deep I thought it would never die—had been wounded so often and so badly, I wasn’t sure it could survive. The dream of a future for us—especially one that included the white-picket-fence hopes I hid in my heart—was no longer possible.
I pulled my gaze from Jimmy’s still, stoic face. “I have power, but not enough to cook a kid in less than a month.”
“So you say,” Summer murmured, “but you lie.”
I took a step toward her. “You are so lucky you’re holding the baby.”
Summer shoved the kitten at Jimmy, but he refused to take her, behaving as if Faith were still an infant, backing away, shaking his head. “Nuh-uh. Not me.”
The fairy turned to Luther, who shook his head. When she glanced again at me, I allowed my lips to curve just a little. “I may lie, but at least I didn’t sell my soul to Satan.”
“Yet.” Summer tilted her pretty, pointed chin. “Just because you aren’t capable of loving someone—”
“I can love!”
“Loving someone enough,” she continued, “to choose a fate worse than death. Oh, we know you’re perfectly capable of dying for someone. You throw yourself headlong into danger every chance you get.” Her tone sneered overachiever even louder than her expression. “But try picking the worst thing you can imagine. Try pledging eternity in the flames just to save him.” She glanced at Jimmy. “Even though you know he might hate you for it.”
“That’s enough,” Jimmy said quietly. But Summer wasn’t finished.
“She wouldn’t have done it for you.”
“I know.”
Summer smiled, a thin, nasty smile that did not fit on her sweet, heart-shaped face. “You think she might do it for him?”
CHAPTER 12
“Do what for who?” I asked.
“What do you think?” Summer didn’t even glance at me, just continued to hold Jimmy’s gaze. “Sell your soul for Sawyer.”
I laughed. “Right.”
“You’re on your way to the Black Hills,” she said. “To see a skinwalker about raising his ghost.”
“How do you know that?” I glanced at Luther, but he shook his head.
Summer tapped an index finger against her temple. She was psychic, too. I took ridiculous satisfaction in observing that her manicure was chipped.
“Someone’s gotta do it,” I said, avoiding Jimmy’s gaze, “and as usual that someone’s me.”
“Let him rest, Lizzy.”
I couldn’t help it. I met Jimmy’s eyes, and then I couldn’t look away. “He isn’t resting. He’s wandering.” I swallowed. “Through my dreams.”
“You’ve got to let him go,” Jimmy continued. “He’s dead. You of all people should know that.”
“Low blow,” I murmured.
“It had to be done.”
“Just like raising him has to be.”
“You sure about that?”
“He disappeared with the key.”
What I referred to was the original text of the Key of Solomon. A grimoire, or book of spells, supposedly composed by the biblical King Solomon. Inside were incantations used to summon, release, and command demons—for starters.
My mother, the Phoenix, had had the key in her possession. Then I’d killed her, turned my back—I’d had a few things to clear off my plate at the time—and when I went to retrieve the thing, it was as gone as Sawyer.
“Did you ever consider that someone took both the body and the book?” Jimmy asked.
“They would have had to be awful fast and awful quiet. Awful invisible, too.”
Jimmy, Summer, and I had all been within a few hundred feet of the key and Sawyer. We hadn’t been paying attention, but we were also a little above average in the hearing, seeing, and sensing departments.
“Maybe they were,” Jimmy said.
Conversations like this always gave me a headache.
“Whatever.” I flapped my hand, and Jimmy stepped back. So did Summer and Luther. I guess I couldn’t blame them. When I used that tone and flipped my fingers, people usually flew. “If someone or something took Sawyer as well as the book, his ghost should know who. We need the key, Sanducci. If the Nephilim have it, they’ll just let all the Grigori out again.”
“Don’t you think if they were going to, they would have?”
“They did.”
“I mean again. It’s been weeks.”
“You know as well as I do that the first step to starting Doomsday is killing the leader of the light.”
The Nephilim had begun this whole mess by killing Ruthie. But I’d managed to stop the Doomsday clock by ending their leader then sending the demon horde back to hell.
However, they’d be back for round two. No matter how many battles the federation won, the final war was inevitable.
“They’re going to have a pretty hard time killing you,” Jimmy said.