"Not hers."
"No? Then why didn't you tell me how to kill her? You lied when you said you didn't know. Some people might think you were a spy. Some people might think it would be a good idea to kill you right now."
Too bad some people didn't know how.
"Who told you?" I asked.
"No one." He let me go with a tiny shove. "Everyone. It's an ancient legend, a prophecy that made no sense. Until you came along."
"Does she know?" I blew out a sharp, quick breath. "Of course she does." Another very good reason for her to try and kill me.
"There has to be another way," Sawyer said quietly.
"There's usually only one method of killing these things. Why would you think there's two just because you didn't like the first?"
"Whitelaw knew how to kill the darkness. But there also has to be a method of killing a Naye'i."
"According to Whitelaw, can't be done."
"He doesn't know everything."
"He appeared to know quite a lot."
"It's too dangerous," Sawyer said. "You'll be one of them, Phoenix. And then—"
He broke off, turned away.
"Then what?"
"Then I'll have to kill you."
I took a deep breath. "I'm counting on it."
Silence settled between us.
"It'll be all right," I said.
Sawyer had been the one to warn me that I should never sleep with a Nephilim; I might absorb their evil along with their strength. I'd figured then that there might come a day that the risk would be worth it. I just hadn't figured that day would arrive so soon.
"I'm the only one who can actually turn into a Nephilim," I said. "I'm the light that will become the dark."
"Because the darkness will swallow you. You'll be gone, Elizabeth."
I frowned. He never called me that. That he had scared me. But being scared had never stopped me before. Usually, being scared just got me started.
"I need to find a Nephilim," I began. "Shouldn't be hard. They're all over the damn place."
I glanced around. The campus looked empty. The entire town had rolled up the sidewalks when the sun went down. Where was a demon when you needed one? When you didn't need one, they were everywhere.
Strong, bare, brown arms came around me from behind. "I won't let you do it," Sawyer said.
"You can't stop me." I struggled but, as usual, he was stronger. "I'll just bang the next Nephilim I see. One will show up. It's only a matter of time."
"It'll kill you."
"I doubt that."
The thought of sleeping with an evil thing made me slightly ill, but I'd do whatever I had to. Because if I didn't, the Grigori would once again walk this earth. They'd mate with humans; repopulate the world with demons. The chaos creeping over the planet now would be nothing compared to what would sweep over it then.
Sawyer sighed, his chest rubbing against my back, his arms sliding along mine. "There's another way."
I stilled. "What other way?"
"Sanducci."
"Sanducci? What—"
I paused as I heard again what Whitelaw had said—
You can't become one by sharing blood or being bitten or cursed— Except that I could.
I'd gained dhampir powers from Jimmy. But I hadn't become a vampire—a Nephilim—because to do so I had to— "Share blood," I murmured.
"Yes," Sawyer said, and let me go.
Sanducci hadn't been evil until he'd exchanged blood with his vampire father. He'd drunk from me in the strega's lair, but I'd managed to end his possession, obsession—whatever—by killing Daddy before Jimmy forced me to drink from him. Jimmy had begged me to remember that I must never share blood with a vampire, or I'd become one.
"Jimmy isn't a Nephilim," I pointed out, "he's a breed."
"When Sanducci is a vampire, he's a vampire. If you take his blood—"
"I'll become a vampire, too."
"Yes."
"He won't go for it."
"You'll have to make him."
That should be fun.
"I think I'd rather pick an evil demon, any evil demon."
"No. With Sanducci, there's a chance you might be able to put the demon back when you're finished with it."
"Put it back where? In him?"
"Inside of you. Trap it. Block it, perhaps."
"So it would always be there?" I fought an involuntary shudder. "Waiting?"
"That's better than the other option. You become the demon. Always."
"At least until you kill me," I muttered.
Sawyer didn't answer.
"Jimmy wasn't having much luck putting the demon back in the box. Can it be done?"
"Theoretically."
I guess theoretical was better than "not a snowball's chance."
I remembered Jimmy's anguish in the cave, the reason he'd taken off and gone there in the first place. Having that thing inside of him was killing him piece by piece. Enticing Jimmy to make me that way, too— "I don't want to hurt him," I blurted.
Sawyer's face hardened. "He didn't have the same concern for you."
"He was possessed by the strega. That doesn't count."
"Did it count when he and Summer—" Sawyer made an obscene hand gesture. "He knew you'd see, that he'd break your heart. He didn't care."
True enough. Still, two wrongs didn't make a right. Or perhaps, in this case, it did.