"She's gone vamp," he said, his voice so full of pain I breathed in. I could almost taste his tears.
"You said we could fix her," Luther whispered.
Mmm. The tremble in his voice, the fear on the wind.
"Not fix," Sawyer murmured. "At least not yet."
"Put the collar on her," Summer ordered. "Otherwise she's going to do to us what she did to the woman of smoke."
I remembered the geyser of blood. I wanted to see that again. My gaze crept over the four of them.
"Eenie, meenie, minee, mo," I whispered, and lunged at the fairy.
Sawyer's hand flicked out and sent me flying backward so hard my head thunked against the ground.
"Oh, God," Jimmy murmured.
"Quit whining," Sawyer ordered. "What's done is done. We have to move forward. Give me a hand."
My legs were pinned, so were my arms. I shrieked my fury to the sky, and in the distance, something answered. Sawyer cursed softly.
I could have taken every one of them separately. But together they were stronger, which only made me snarl and slaver and buck against the restraints.
I snapped at Sawyer's hands as he slid the collar around my neck. He smacked me in the nose like a bad dog, and my eyes watered. As soon as the latch clicked shut, I stilled.
Sawyer's eyes met mine. "Better?"
I nodded, and they released me, then backed up so fast I winced. Both at their reactions and at the memory of what I'd said and done and been.
I needed a shower, a scrub brush, and about a pound of soap. The woman of smoke's blood was speckled all over me; my hands and forearms appeared painted sienna, and the crust under my nails was so thick it felt as if I'd been digging in a garden for days.
A pile of clothes lay at my feet. I donned them quickly, no longer comfortable with my nakedness, even though fifty percent of the people here had seen it all before.
The shirt—BLACK SABBATH REUNION TOUR, ha-ha—was obviously Sanducci's, but someone had gone through my bag and found my last pair of clean under-wear and shorts.
I glanced at Jimmy, but he wouldn't meet my eyes. Luther sensed as if he expected me to attack him at any second. Summer wanted to slug me. We still had that in common. Only Sawyer appeared the same as when I'd last seen him.
My fingers brushed the collar. "What's this?"
"Bespelled," Sawyer answered. "While you wear it, you're you."
I lifted my hand, touched my teeth. The fangs were gore, along with the desire to tear out everyone's throat. But I didn't think I was me. Deep down inside, the demon still howled.
"Whose spell?" I asked, and Summer raised her hand. "You had to bespell a dog collar? Wouldn't the magic work just fine on a nice silver chain?"
Her lips curved. "Where would be the fun in that?"
I almost smiled back, and then I remembered the shrieking in the night, the strange flickers across the face of the moon, the roar in the distance in answer to my call.
"What happened?" Sawyer asked.
"I kicked her ass, then tossed her in pieces to the four winds."
Sawyer frowned. "That's an old Navajo saying."
"Which I got from an old Navajo."
His brow lifted and I shrugged. "Dream-walk world."
"Interesting," he murmured. "I always thought it was a proverb. Merely a short pithy way to tell the Diné how to live a good life." He flicked his hand toward the sky. "Figuratively, we must toss evil away."
"Worked pretty well literally, too."
"Fascinating," Sawyer said. "You found that old proverb in my head, and you didn't even know you would need it."
"Yeah, worked out great." I really didn't want to talk about it anymore. While I'd enjoyed the blood flow last night, this morning it was making me kind of ill.
"Once you tossed her," Summer interjected, "then what happened?"
They are free.
"Something got out."
Sawyer, Summer, and Jimmy exchanged glances. Luther had wandered off to peer at the dark patch of earth where I'd spilled the blood of the Naye'i. That probably wasn't healthy.
"Kid," I muttered. "Come back here."
Luther seemed like he wanted to tell me to kiss off. Instead he shrugged and strolled to Summer's side, where she took his hand. I frowned at the gesture, but it seemed more about comfort than anything else so I let it pass.
"What's free?" I asked.
"The Grigori," Sawyer said.
I opened my mouth to drop the F-bomb, caught a glimpse of Luther's face, and bit my lip instead. "That's impossible."
"Not according to Ruthie."
"Ruthie?" I racked my brain; I couldn't recall talking to her lately. But since the entire night between the death of the Naye'i and waking up this morning was a blank, who knew?
"Did I—"
"No," Sawyer answered. "You probably won't be hearing from her for a while."
"Because?"
"She's in heaven. No demons allowed."
Now I did drop the F-bomb. Couldn't help it. "Get this thing out of me."
"Baby—" Jimmy began, and I flicked him an evil glare, which he didn't see because he still couldn't look at me. "There's no getting rid of it."
"Confine it, refine it. Whatever Summer did to you, she can do to me."
The fairy choked.