“Bummer for them, huh?”
Jimmy grinned, and for just an instant I caught a glimpse of the boy I’d adored. My breath caught. I didn’t want to lose that memory, not right away. Sometimes the memories of good times were all that kept us from giving in to the bad.
As if he’d read my mind, Jimmy’s smile faded. “We need to stop screwing around searching for the key when we have better things to do.”
“Like?”
“Kill Nephilim. If we manage to obliterate them all, don’t we win?”
“I don’t think we can.”
He lifted his chin. “Why not?”
Jimmy was the best DK in the federation, had been since he was eighteen. He’d been Ruthie’s right-hand man. He’d be mine now if he could stand to be near me for more than a minute.
“There’d always be one that we missed,” I said. “Or a breed would take it into his head that he wanted to rule the world, then run through the sequence that opens Tartarus”—the lowest level of hell reserved for the worst of the worst—“release the Grigori, re-populate the earth with Nephilim, and so on and so forth.”
“I think we could take care of a breed before he managed all that.”
“What if he had the Book of Samyaza?”
“That’s a myth,” Jimmy muttered.
“So are we.”
It was an old argument. One we’d never resolved.
The Book of Samyaza was a legend. No one had ever seen it, but according to the stories it had been written by a minion of Satan whose ear was filled with revelatory prophecies for the dark side.
The Bible said good would triumph, and I believed that. I had to. Unfortunately, the Book of Samyaza said just the opposite. And the Nephilim believed that, too.
I didn’t hear Jimmy approach until he spoke right next to me. “You need to let sleeping wolves die.”
“Very funny.”
“I liked it.” He remained silent until I met his eyes. “Sawyer’s gone. He isn’t coming back. Even if you raised his ghost, then what?”
“I ask him the questions I need answered.”
“And then?”
“He goes into the light?”
“Sure he does.”
Sawyer had told me himself he was too damned to be innocent, although that had turned out not to be true. Still, I wasn’t sure the light was in his future. But I didn’t think the darkness should be, either.
“I don’t know what happens then,” I snapped. “All I know is that I have to talk to him one more time.”
“You think he’ll forgive you?”
“I don’t think he blames me.”
“No.” Jimmy turned away. “That’s all you.”
Jimmy and Summer had left Jimmy’s black Hummer at the base of Sheep Mountain. I couldn’t believe we hadn’t seen the thing on our way up. It was visible from outer space.
“We can ride there in the Impala,” I offered.
“My Impala?” Summer muttered.
“Not anymore. Forfeit your soul, forfeit your very cool car. It’s in the manual.”
“There’s a manual?”
I wasn’t actually going to keep the Impala. But I was going to use the vehicle for as long as she’d let me get away with it.
“Can I drive?” Luther had returned. I didn’t even bother to answer.
We piled inside and made our way down Sheep Mountain. Summer sat in the front seat and held Faith. The kitten’s eyes were heavy. She’d had an upsetting day.
The men were in back, spears across their laps. Which reminded me. I glanced in the rearview mirror.
“What did you put on the tips?” At Jimmy’s confused frown, I elaborated. “To kill the Iyas.”
Understanding dawned. “Vitamin D.”
Now I frowned. “Huh?”
“Lack of sunlight causes vitamin D deficiency. Increase of vitamin D cures that, so to reproduce the effects of the sun we coated the tips of the spears with vitamin D.”
Sometimes the methods of ending these creatures were almost as bizarre as the creatures themselves.
We neared the foot of the mountain and, sure enough, there on a dusty side track sat Jimmy’s Hummer. He’d done a decent job camouflaging it with brush. The storm clouds had done the rest. Now the hood of the SUV reflected the sun, drawing the attention of every passerby—if there’d been any—to what appeared to be a behemoth alien land cruiser.
I’d said it before, so I said it again. “Whoever thought selling US Army tactical vehicles to the public was a good idea?”
Jimmy lifted his hand. He loved that damn thing.
As we climbed out of the Impala I realized that I’d neglected to mention the reason we’d come to the Badlands in the first place.
“I need a favor.”
“I’m not coming with you to the Black Hills to raise Sawyer.” Jimmy opened the rear door on the Hummer and tossed the spears inside.
“I didn’t ask you to.”
That surprised him. He’d been headed toward the driver’s seat, but now stopped and turned. “Then what do you want?”
“For you to watch the baby while I search the Black Hills for Sani, the skinwalker.”
“Watch the baby,” he repeated. “Where’s her mom?”