"Come on," he said, and took my hand. The anger in his eyes smoldering, he dragged me out the nearest door and into the night.
I shivered, and not just because my shirt hung in shreds, or even because my math teacher had just molested me. But also because it was spring in Milwaukee and snow was still piled at the edges of the driveways, the yards, the corners of the roads. Here and there daffodils pushed through the half-frozen mud, their bright yellow petals brighter because of the remaining splotches of white.
The slick slide of the switchblade registered seconds after the pure silver weapon appeared in Sanducci's hand. I lifted my gaze from the knife, sparkling merrily in the glow from a distant streetlight, to Jimmy's face. What I saw there made me shiver even more.
We kept to the alleys and backyards, to the shadows. I didn't hear sounds of pursuit—the guy couldn't be that stupid, could he? Of course he didn't know about Jimmy and his pet knife.
A few dogs barked, a few lights went on as we skittered through yards, but half an hour later we entered Ruthie's empty kitchen. I'd hoped to creep upstairs, take a scalding hot shower or ten, burn my clothes, and pretend nothing had happened. But as soon as the door shut, Jimmy shouted, "Ruthie!"
"Are you nuts?"
He let his eyes drop to where I clutched my shredded shirt over my breasts. "Are you?"
Ruthie came in, took one look at my torn clothes, at the livid red scratches that marred my skin, then folded me into her arms, and hustled me upstairs. Right before I left the room, I turned back, but Jimmy was already gone.
I begged Ruthie not to call the police. My word against his. I knew how things worked. So did Ruthie. She nodded slowly, and then she put me to bed.
The next day Mr. Nix wasn't at school. Or the day after that or ever again.
CHAPTER 32
"You killed him," I said. "Mr. Nix."
Jimmy shrugged, and his muscles rippled seductively beneath his bare, smooth skin. "He touched you."
"Jesus, Jimmy," I muttered. "There are a lot of guys you'd have to kill if that were the criteria."
"And I have," he murmured. "Killed a lot of guys."
My eyes narrowed on his too still face. "How many were actually guys?"
"A few."
"And Mr. Nix? What was he?"
"A Nix is a German shape-shifter. Horse, snake, fish, or mermaid."
"Merman," I corrected absently.
"Whatever. Legends say they have sex with their victims then drag them into the nearest body of water to drown."
I guess that explained what I'd seen when I'd touched him. Lots of dead girls in the water. And if it weren't for Jimmy, I'd have joined them.
I heard again the swish of his silver blade. "You killed him," I said, "and he was ashes."
"Would explain how he disappeared."
"You didn't see?"
"I stuck him and ran. I wasn't stupid. The guy was huge."
I frowned. "You didn't know?"
"That he was a shifter? Not then."
Which meant Jimmy had thought he was killing a man. A molester, true, but human.
Jimmy saw the understanding cross my face. "He hurt you; he died. End of story."
I wasn't sure what to say about that. Nix had been a demon: that Jimmy hadn't known it when he killed him hadn't changed what Nix was, what he'd done to more girls than me, and what he would have done to countless others if not for Sanducci.
"Why didn't you know? Why didn't Ruthie?"
"Seers can't see every demon. You'd go loony."
I wasn't certain we weren't.
"There are just too many of them," Jimmy said. "We do the best that we can."
Silence fell between us. But it didn't last long.
"Do you hate me now?" Jimmy asked.
I'd hated him for years, but not for that.
"Nix was a demon," I said.
"I didn't know that."
I moved closer, wrapping my arms around his waist, capturing him when he would have tried to escape, though there was nowhere for him to go, then laying my cheek against his chest and listening to the familiar beat of his heart. "I've known for years that you killed him, Jimmy, and I thought he was human, too."
That shut him up.
"I touched you; I loved you; I gave you myself; and I knew all along what you did."
"Mr. Nix disappeared. You didn't know jack."
"I knew."
He leaned back, and I lifted my head to meet his curious eyes. "You saw?"
"No." Amazingly, I hadn't seen what had happened to Mr. Nix any of the times I'd touched Jimmy, which meant that the killing of the man hadn't bothered Sanducci all that much. He hadn't thought about it, dreamed of it, or agonized over it. Neither had I. The guy had deserved to die. Some just did.
"Then how—" Jimmy asked.
"I can add," I said. "Knife, you, Nix. Deadsville."
I didn't tell him that there'd been other times when I'd touched him that I'd gotten wisps of his past, seen faces of others, known things that he'd done. It didn't matter.