“What am I going to do with—?” I jabbed my thumb toward the bed.
“Protect her.”
Sheesh, I wished someone would sing a new tune.
“How?”
“You need a powerful ally who’s been fighting Nephilim for a long time, who’s very, very good at killing. Someone you trust. Someone who would do anything you asked just because you asked and would die before he let you down.”
“Ah, hell,” I muttered. “Not him.”
CHAPTER 3
“Yes,” Ruthie said. “Him. Take the child to Jimmy.”
Jimmy Sanducci and I had history—a lot of it. We’d loved and lost each other and then— I wasn’t quite sure what to call what had happened lately. I still loved him, but I kind of thought he hated me. I couldn’t blame him, but it still hurt. Declaring to the universe that I also loved Sawyer had not helped the situation.
Jimmy and Sawyer did not care for each other. Asking Sanducci to watch over Sawyer’s child was going to be as much fun as asking your boss for a raise right after you wrecked the company car.
“There’s gotta be an easier way.”
“In your experience, Lizbeth, is there ever an easier way?”
“No.”
“You can’t send another to Inyan Kara. You have to be the one to go.”
As far as I knew, only skinwalkers could raise ghosts. I’d become one the first time I slept with Sawyer. Besides being psychometric, with latent channeling abilities, I was also a sexual empath—I absorbed supernatural powers through sex. Talk about a mood killer.
While I supposedly had the power to raise ghosts, I hadn’t been able to raise Sawyer—another check mark on our “why we need a skinwalker” list. I hoped Sani could reveal what I was doing wrong.
“I’ll take Faith with me,” I said.
“Not a good idea.” Luther’s great big hand went up, forestalling my inevitable why? “Sawyer stole his mountain, child. You think Sani’s gonna forgive that? You think he’s gonna let the opportunity for revenge pass him by?”
“I can protect her.”
“Maybe you can; maybe you can’t. You don’t know what kind of magic the Old One has found on top of that Lakota mountain. You wanna take the chance he’s strong enough to go through you and get to her?”
“Fine.” I sighed. “I’ll leave her with Luther.”
“He’s a child himself.”
“Don’t tell him that.”
Ruthie’s lips curved. “I’ve brought up plenty of kids, Lizbeth. Along the way I did learn a thing or two about teenage boys and their egos.”
“You could watch her. Just stay . . .” I waved vaguely at Luther’s body. “In there.”
But Ruthie was already shaking Luther’s head. “I got children back home that need me. Can’t just leave ’em on their own when they died the way they did.”
“Jimmy isn’t going to like this,” I said.
“He don’t like much lately. What’s one more thing for his list?”
Ruthie was right. I couldn’t leave a baby with a teenager—no matter how responsible Luther was, no matter how vicious he could become—and the only other person left alive with whom I’d trust a shape-shifting infant was Sanducci.
“Where is he?” I asked.
“The Badlands.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Convenient.”
“Coincidence or fate?” Luther’s shoulders lifted then lowered. “You be the judge.”
“Why’s he there?”
“Nest of Iyas.”
“Some type of vamp?”
Jimmy was a dhampir—the son of a vampire and a woman. His father had been an asshole—I mean a strega—translation, “Italian vampire witch.” No one knew what his mother had been. Probably lunch.
Dhampirs can sense vampires, and they’re very good at ending them. Jimmy was ultra-fast, super-strong, and damn hard to kill. Once again, due to sexual empathy, so was I.
“Lakota storm monster,” Ruthie explained. “Possesses a hunger food can’t satisfy. Only blood.”
Sounded like a vamp to me. “What else?”
“Wherever they walk, winter follows. They wear the heads of their victims as trophies.”
“How exactly do these things blend in?”
Luther’s lips curved. “They’re human when they choose to be. Only in battle do they become Iyas, faceless monsters of the storm.”
“How do you kill them?”
“Sunlight.”
For a vampire storm monster, I guess that made sense.
“We’ll leave this afternoon,” I said. I was going to have to bring Luther along. I couldn’t handle Faith by myself.
“Why not now?”
“I promised Megan I’d be here for her daughter’s birthday party.”
“Tell her you can’t make it.”
“No,” I said firmly.
“Lizbeth—”
“No,” I repeated. “I won’t stay for the whole party but I am going.”
I’d broken one promise to Megan. I hadn’t taken care of her husband. Instead I’d gotten him killed. I’d sworn not to break another promise to her again if I could help it.