He rattled off several French-sounding curses, ending with “Empath.” He spat that like a curse, too.
If I hadn’t already planned to kill him, I’d have to now. The sexual empathy was a secret I liked to keep from the dark side.
Reaching out, I tried to take the other knife, too, but he was ready for me and held on tight. I wished momentarily I didn’t have to fight shirtless, but since I didn’t have much choice, and maybe it would distract him, I tightened my hold on the dagger and moved forward.
I’d never been in a knife fight. Close encounters were more Jimmy’s style. Sanducci was king of the sharp shiny things. I was better with my hands, my feet, a club, a gun. Not that I couldn’t use a knife. How hard was it? Pointy end went into the bad guy. But when we both had knives, and we both had superpowers, things got dicey.
He cut me; I cut him. I healed my wounds; he healed his. We could have kept at it for days. Then I aimed a fancy roundhouse kick toward his chest, and Mait saw my tattoo.
“You’re a—” My heel met his sternum and he flew. “Skinwalker,” he said right before he hit the wall, cracked his head, landed on the ground, and the knife in his hand slid across the pavement. “You’ll never die.”
“Never say never,” I muttered. “But certainly not today.”
I landed on his chest, the tip of my dagger speeding toward his left eye.
That thing I have about eyes?
Turns out, I didn’t have it anymore.
CHAPTER 34
“What the hell you doin’ back there?”
The deserted street was deserted no longer.
“Mind your bizness,” I shouted, doing my best impression of a crack addict. As a big-city cop, I’d known plenty of them.
The guy moved on, grumbling; I needed to move on, too. Except the body wasn’t ashes yet, and I didn’t dare leave until it was.
Burning a body isn’t as easy as you’d think. Luckily I had supernatural fire literally at my—
“Talon-tips,” I said.
An instant later I was a phoenix and could shoot fire in a steady, blistering stream until the only sound in the alley was the crackling of the flames.
When nothing remained of Mait, former god of the night demons, but ashes, I beat my huge, multicolored wings until every last particle had swirled away. Then I clasped the dagger in one talon, my knife in the other, and flew into the fading night.
Dawn threatened when I circled the hotel then landed on the terrace. As I’d done before, I went straight to the bathroom and took a shower. It didn’t help.
I might be able to wash the scent of Nephilim from my skin, but I wasn’t ever going to be able to wash the memory of what I’d done from my brain.
And there was going to be payback. I just knew it.
So far I didn’t feel evil. That had to be good, right? Maybe I’d get lucky and absorb only Mait’s magic without the accompanying vice.
Yeah, that would happen.
My phone was ringing when I came out. I snatched it up, glancing at the caller ID even as I brought it to my ear.
Luther.
“Did you find her?”
“You done made your choice,” Ruthie said.
I blinked. Why was Ruthie calling me?
Then everything connected, and I sat down heavily on the bed. Ruthie was talking through Luther, because I’d just embraced evil again.
“Crap,” I muttered.
“Uh-huh.”
“I had to,” I began. “I saw—” I paused, not wanting to tell her what I’d seen, as if putting the horror into words might just make it happen, if it hadn’t already. “Something,” I finished.
“Figured that or you wouldn’t have done what you done. I told you’d there’d be consequences.”
“I’ll pay whatever I have to.”
“Not much choice ‘bout that,” Ruthie said, then gave a deep sorry sigh. “What you done, Lizbeth, I fear for you.”
I feared for me, too, but I feared more for Jimmy and Faith. I’d do it again if I had to. I just hoped like hell I never had to.
“You go on back to the Dinetah.”
“What? No. I have to—”
“Sawyer ain’t goin’ anywhere.”
She was trying to keep me from raising him. She had to know that, eventually, I would. I had to.
“The boy is frightened. Summer’s losin’ her mind. You go on back, find out what’s what.”
I opened my mouth to argue; what came out was, “Yes, ma’am.”
I caught the first plane to Albuquerque, rented a Bronco, and drove to Summer’s place. At heart it was an Irish cottage, and there were times the terrain around it appeared like the rolling emerald hills of that land. There were other times when the cottage became a castle, complete with a moat.
The gargoyles remained regardless of what shape the house took. Their job was to guard against evil. So what had they been doing when Faith disappeared? I planned to find out.
As I drove up, the cottage shimmered, shifted, became a ranch house with a wraparound wooden porch. Several horses whinnied from the corral. On closer inspection, I was certain they’d be revealed as half horse and half something else—gargoyles on alert.