Slowly I turned, casting the round yellow light upward. He was a mess.
The T-shirt had once been white but was now brownish gray and hung in tatters. His skin, always tan, even in the longest, coldest of winters, glistened; the ripples of his belly and the supple curves of his biceps and pecs shone lusciously in the light.
His dark eyes were closed; he muttered in a tense and uneasy sleep. Dark hair, tangled with sweat and dirt, fell across his just short of pretty face.
If I'd needed any more evidence that Jimmy was not himself, the dirt would have done it. From the moment he'd arrived at Ruthie's, he'd taken two or three showers a day. He always smelled better than anyone I knew. I figured his obsession with soap stemmed from so many years on the streets without it.
There were worse compulsions. Sucking blood, for instance.
I inched my knife from the scabbard at my waist, clutching the hilt so tightly my fingers ached. I crept forward, uncertain what I meant to do. I couldn't kill him while he slept, although if I needed to kill him that was probably my best bet. I just wasn't sure . . .
It would be so much easier if he opened those eyes to reveal a spark of red in their dark depths, then smiled with a mouthful of fangs and tried to kill me.
"Jimmy." I could barely hear myself speak, my voice drowned out by my own thundering heart.
Or maybe that was just thunder. The ground seemed to rumble with it.
"Jimmy," I tried again. This time I managed some volume to the word. Again it was drowned out but not by thunder.
The wind I'd expected rolled through the cave, stirring my hair as Ruthie's voice murmured, Black Howler.
I faced the entrance, far away and very small. Something moved into the gray fading light, making it flicker down the tunnel like a strobe.
From the tone and the volume of Ruthie's whisper I deduced the howler was a Nephilim and not a breed. Usually I could tell just by the number of bodies lying around. Nephilim like to kill.
However, certain breeds did, too. Some fought for us, some for them, and still others had yet to be swayed to either side. Same goes for the fairies.
I glanced at Jimmy. He continued to twitch and mutter, but he didn't wake up. I caught a few words. "No ... Can't.. . Won't... Thirsty." And then, "Sorry, Lizzy."
Hell.
He was the only one who called me that, and when he did, I knew it was Jimmy. When he'd been controlled by his freak show of a father, he'd called me "Elizabeth." I'd hated it almost as much as when he sometimes called me "baby."
The thing in the doorway moved forward. I clutched my knife tighter and went to meet it.
Big and shaggy, with a huge rack branching out from its bearlike head, this was quite possibly the ugliest Nephilim I'd yet to see. I wondered idly where the human part of it lay hidden, until I got close enough and saw that the long black hair shrouded a nose that would have been at home in the middle of anyone's face.
I kept my gaze averted, flicking glances at it out of the corner of my eye. I couldn't risk dropping dead, though I was starting to wonder if that power was a myth. If this beast had been long in the mountains, corpses would have been strewn all over the place.
Nevertheless, I couldn't take the chance that I'd be downed; I wouldn't let the howler walk over my inert body and make his way to Jimmy. I might have to kill Sanducci later, but there was no way I was going to let a Nephilim do it.
According to Dr. Gray, the way to kill a howler was to separate the head from the body. Too bad I'd forgotten my samurai sword as well as my axe. I wasn't sure how I was going to kill this thing, but I had to try.
The beast made me nervous the way it kept arching its neck, trying to peer around me and making a noise that sounded suspiciously like mmmm. Perhaps dhampir was a howler delicacy. What did I know?
Suddenly the thing threw back its head, spread out its arms, and released a horrific, inhuman howl. The sound bounced off the cave walls, pounding at my eardrums until I-wanted to cover them with my hands. I was paralyzed by it, so when the howler stepped forward and tried to bitch-slap me, I barely managed to duck.
Off balance, I fell to my knees. My ears rang from the lasting echo of the call, but I dipped my shoulder and rolled, even as it swiped at my head with razorlike claws. A whiff of air skated past my cheek.
I gained my feet, spun away from another swipe, then back-flipped to avoid the bear hug, and clipped it on the chin with my heel. I held on to my knife, but I lost the flashlight. It didn't really matter since we were now close enough to the entrance to be illuminated by the fading daylight and the flashes of lightning from the approaching storm.
Where the hell was Summer? She had to have checked her half of the caves by now. She'd no doubt flitted back to the Impala to wait for me. The way things were going she'd be waiting into eternity.
How long before she came looking for me? Would she be in time? Would she be of any use if she was?