"How about I toss it off a cliff?"
Ruthie was shaking her head before I finished the sentence. "She'll find it. You must go to the benandanti. She lives in Detroit, on Trulia Street. A gray house, red shutters, you—"
"Hold on," I interrupted. "A what-who?"
"Benandanti means good walker in Italian."
"All right. So a benandanti is a good walking . . . what?"
"Witch."
"A good witch," I repeated. "Like Sabrina? Saman-tha? Tabitha?"
Ruthie gave me the look. I shut up.
"The benandanti has the power to heal the bewitched."
"And this will help me with the amulet, why?"
"Jewelry doesn't possess powers. It's the bewitch-ment that gives it the magic."
I thought of the turquoise and crucifix, still in the car along with the amulet. The strength of the crucifix lay in the blessing upon it. The magic of the turquoise lay in Sawyer's talents as a medicine man. So it followed that the power of the amulet had come from a spell—curse, blessing—it didn't matter.
"You're saying that a benandanti can 'heal' the amulet?"
"Not a benandanti, the benandanti. There's only one at a time. And yes, she'll take care of that amulet just fine."
"A benandanti is a good Italian witch; the strega was a bad witch." I frowned. "Was there only one of him, too?"
"Until there's another."
Good news, bad news. The strega was gone, but knowing the Nephilim, another would appear soon enough.
"Is there a good and a bad of everything?" I asked.
"Life craves balance," Ruthie answered. "We wouldn't have devils if we hadn't had angels first."
"Then it follows that we should have enough seers and DKs to fight the Nephilim. Otherwise things are out of balance."
"Lack of balance is what the Nephilim crave. It creates chaos. We need to find more soldiers, and we need to train them. Which isn't gonna be easy when we're also fightin' Nephilim with the few we have left."
"So what do we do? What do I do?"
"Lead them."
"That is so not helpful."
Ruthie's lips curved. "You're on the right track. Get Jimmy back; he's the best soldier you've got. Summer ain't bad, either. Have Sawyer search out new federation members, those who don't know yet what to do with their powers, and have him show them."
"Sawyer?"
"He's always been very good at finding new seers. DK.s, too. Though usually seers draw their own DKs to them."
"Unless they inherit them." As I had.
"Unless," Ruthie agreed. "You need to gather the ones in hiding, keep fightin' at their side. It's all you can do."
"It would be nice if Sawyer could walk on two legs and use his words anywhere but on Navajo land," I murmured.
His going to the new recruits and training them ASAP would be more practical than his having to find them by osmosis, draw them to New Mexico, and then deal with them there.
"Take Sawyer with you to Detroit," Ruthie ordered. "It's dangerous."
I wondered if she meant dangerous because it was Detroit or dangerous because of the benandanti and other assorted supernatural beings, then decided it didn't matter. Dangerous was dangerous, and Sawyer was the best bodyguard, even if I couldn't get him on a plane without a wire cage and a muzzle.
Luckily I had the Impala, and Detroit was a short, but extremely annoying, trip around the tip of Lake Michigan from Chicago. We'd be there by morning.
The laughter of the children drew my attention to the window once more. Seven kids now. Where had they been hiding?
I got up and moved closer, peering through the glass. Between one blink and the next, there were eight kids.
"Son of a—" I murmured, as understanding dawned.
The children hadn't been playing hide-and-seek; they'd been appearing—bing, bing, bing—as they died one by one in Lake Vista.
CHAPTER 12
"People are being killed." I spun away from the window to face Ruthie. "And we're chatting in a sunny kitchen?"
Ruthie's eyes were moist. "You think I want them to die? You think I like having a full house?"
I threw up my hands. "I don't know what you want or what I think. I only know that people, children, are dying by lucere attack. An attack I was sent to stop."
"But you went down in the field."
"According to you, I'm not dead yet."
"You needed time to heal." Ruthie's gaze became unfocused as she stared past me. "Sawyer's done all he can."
"Did you put a hex on me, make me forget what was going on back there?" I couldn't believe I hadn't remembered until I'd seen that child appear out of nowhere.
"You were here for a reason—to listen, to learn, to heal. Until those things were done, you couldn't leave. No use worryin' about it."
"I need to go back."
"Go." Ruthie flipped her hand, dismissing me.