Apocalypse Happens (14 page)

“Phoenix,” Sawyer said between gritted teeth. “I can only do so much on my own. I’m bringing the storm when there is no storm. The lightning is going to require more power than I have.”

“Nothing requires more power than you have.”

“Touch me,” he ordered, and his eyes blazed silver.

I slapped my hand to his waist. The sharp smack of flesh on flesh was followed by a sharp hiss, and steam rose from his skin as thunder rumbled ever closer.

As always, when I touched him the essence of his beasts called to me. They wanted out—every last one of them. Sawyer’s tattoos were predators; hell, so was he.

Sometimes when we came together, those animals seemed to swirl in the shadows, waiting to be called at his command. I looked for them now where the light met the darkness and saw nothing. They didn’t dance in the flames or float through the smoke, yet still I sensed them hovering.

The wind stirred my hair; the rain pattered against my cheeks and I lifted my face.

“Ah,” I murmured. There they were. Appearing and disappearing in the shapes of the clouds that now gathered. Behind them sparks flared, and the air sizzled.

“Almost,” Sawyer whispered. “Just need a little more . . .”

He shifted and his slick naked body slid against mine. He lowered his gaze from the sky to my face. That sizzle in the air seemed to scoot along every nerve ending I had.

“A little more what?” I managed.

“Power,” he said, and kissed me.

Static flared, a sharp spark between my lips and his. His tongue soothed the burn. I thought:
Moisture and electricity. That can’t be good.
Then all my thoughts disappeared as it became very good indeed.

The storm erupted. Wind whipped our hair; rain pelted our bodies; thunder shook the mountain. I held on to him more tightly, kissed him more deeply. He was the only warmth, the only reality, that I had.

His arms were still raised—calling down the lightning, controlling the wind, bringing the chaos. My lips opened, I welcomed him in. The man could do
more with his mouth than most could do with their entire body.

I traced his tattoos. Whenever my fingertips skated over one, the image of the animal flared behind my closed eyelids, yet I felt no difference in the texture of his flesh. These tattoos had not been carved into his skin with a needle but emblazoned by magic and—

“Lightning,” I whispered into his mouth.

“Soon,” he returned. “Very, very soon.”

“You did them,” I murmured, catching for just an instant a flicker of the past. Sawyer on this mountain, the wind swirling, the rain falling, the storm raging.

“Mmm.” His voice was absent, his attention on my breasts, my neck, the curve where my waist became my hip, where my thigh became my ass.

I tried to focus, managed but barely. “You did those tattoos. You said they were made by a sorcerer wielding the lightning. It was you.”

He shrugged. The movement shifting his bones in ways bones should not shift.

“You’re a sorcerer,” I clarified.

“Medicine man, skinwalker. I’m many things, Phoenix.”

“Your powers . . .” I paused, uncertain what I meant to say, what I wanted to ask.

“Did you think murder would give me nothing?”

I jerked, the movement knocking me against him hard, though our wet bodies glided together so soft.

“What did it give you?” I asked.

His gaze met mine, and the centuries swirled. “Everything,” he whispered, “and nothing at all.”

Then he kissed me again, making me dizzy with his past, with his power. I was lost, couldn’t fight it or him any longer. Maybe later.

More kissing, more touching. The slide of my hands
across his skin, my breasts skidded over his chest, my nipples pearling from the friction and the chill. His penis pressed against my belly. I couldn’t help it; I rubbed against the hard length.

His tongue mimicked the act I was considering committing on the wet ground. In and out of my mouth, in and out. I sucked on it, played tag too. He bit me, just a nip, so I bit him back. The sharp pain, the tang of blood, seemed to increase the wind; the rain became a torrent.

Everywhere we touched flared both hot and cold, sizzling and slick; the air buzzed. Something was coming.

I held on to Sawyer. I wouldn’t, couldn’t, let him go, so I kissed him harder, deeper, and suddenly everything stilled.

The ground jerked, as if the very dirt were a carpet about to be pulled from beneath our feet. My body and Sawyer’s too convulsed, shuddering and shaking as ozone, acrid and dark, burned all around us. The whole world seemed to go bright with silver light. I was afraid to open my eyes for fear my corneas would be fried to a crisp.

But the earth didn’t open and swallow us. The lightning didn’t strike us. The rain no longer rained down on us. Even the breeze had died.

As I came back to myself, I realized three things. Sawyer and I were still pressed together, the remnants of what felt very much like an orgasm tingling along my skin.

The air still smelled like something sizzled; I could almost hear it crackling.

And we were no longer alone; I sensed something, someone, very near.

Cautiously, I opened my eyes. The lake remained
smooth as glass. The nearly full moon shone serenely on its surface. Mount Taylor loomed. Sawyer’s hogan remained exactly where it had always been.

However, the hat in the charmed circle was gone, and Xander Whitelaw now stood in its place.

CHAPTER 14

He looked exactly the same as the last time I’d seen him.

No, not the
last
time. I wanted to forget the last time.

Xander Whitelaw looked the same as the last time I’d seen him alive.

Khaki trousers, blue button-down complete with a tie, loafers and rimless glasses. Total geekazoid, but handsome if you liked blond-haired, dark-eyed long-distance runners with a brain. I was sure someone did. Or had. Hell.

“Miss Phoenix?” he asked in his soft, slightly southern voice.

I nodded, unwrapping myself from Sawyer. Our skin peeled apart with an audible
fwonk
. Sweat and rain, as well as a little mud, covered us; we were a mess. I badly wanted to jump in the lake, but first things first.

“Clothes,” I muttered, and ran for the hogan.

“It doesn’t matter,” Sawyer called after me. “He won’t care. He’s beyond that.”

“I’m not.” I ducked inside the structure.

There wasn’t much there. Sawyer didn’t care who saw him in the altogether, and this was his place, even more so than the one down the mountain. Sawyer came to the lake when he wanted to perform rituals
no one else should see. Or perhaps he came to perform rituals that could only be performed here.

The Navajo refer to Mount Taylor as their
sacred mountain of the south
or
the turquoise mountain
. Once, long ago, it had been an active volcano. Maybe that was why Sawyer lived at its base, why magic happened at its peak. Volcanoes never really went away; they only fell asleep. I wouldn’t put it past Sawyer to wake this one up. Considering the way the ground had rumbled, maybe he had.

Inside the hogan all I could find was winter clothes—a plaid hunting shirt and heavy denim jeans. I’d swelter in them unless—

I yanked off the arms of the shirt—with my super-strength, I didn’t even need scissors—then I tore off the bottom half; I did the same to the jeans above the knees, leaving just enough material to cover the important parts. After the adjustments for the temperature, the items fit fairly well. Sawyer’s aura, his strength and power and wisdom, made him seem larger than he was. If not for the muscles on him and the hips and chest on me, we’d be the same size. I didn’t even have to loop twine through the belt loops before I rejoined the men outside.

Sawyer lifted his brows but didn’t comment on the destruction of his clothes. I was sure he had more somewhere and equally sure he rarely wore these. It would have to be a cold day in . . . the mountains before he deigned to put on a stitch.

Xander still stood within the circle. I joined Sawyer and murmured, “Can he move?”

“Move, yes,” Sawyer answered low enough so Xander couldn’t hear. “Leave, no.”

“Why?”

“We don’t know where he’s been, who he’s seen, what he’s been offered.”

“Offered?”

“There is a hell, Phoenix, and some of us will go there.”

I cast him a quick glance. He was working for the good guys—as far as I knew. Why was he worried about hell?

I opened my mouth to ask, but Sawyer kept talking. “You’ll agree to anything to avoid that.”

“Me personally, or the general ‘you’?”

Sawyer lifted a brow and didn’t bother.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Sawyer took a step closer; Xander took a step back. His heel brushed the circle, and he drew in a sharp breath as he jerked it away. I scowled at Sawyer. The guy had been through enough.

Xander’s brow creased, which only served to remind me how uncreased his brow had been. Whitelaw was undoubtedly one of the youngest Ph.D.s in history, and I’d gotten him killed long before his time. Guilt flickered, but I was getting used to it.

“I called Miss Phoenix.” Xander’s dark, confused gaze met mine. I wanted to take his hand, say I was sorry, but as Sawyer had said, I didn’t know where Xander had been, what he’d agreed to, who he’d become.

Instead, I nodded encouragingly. “That’s right.”

“You were coming to see me.” He glanced around, and despite the press of darkness it was easy to tell that we weren’t in Indiana anymore. “Or did you say you were going to bring me to see you?”

I opened my mouth, then shut it again. Was I supposed to tell him what had happened? I didn’t want to.

“We brought you,” Sawyer said, which was technically true. We’d just left out the part where I’d gone to him first and he’d been dead.

“Fascinating,” Xander murmured.

“You said you had information for me,” I reminded him.

“I do. Yes.” The professor lifted his hand, rubbing his forehead as if he could make the information within tumble free. “The
Book of Samyaza
.”

Sawyer and I exchanged a glance. Double damn. I was really hoping that was a myth.

“You found it?”

“No. There are so many rumors, but not a single solid clue as to its whereabouts or even what it looks like.”

“Swell.”

“Relax, Phoenix,” Sawyer murmured. “That means they don’t know anything about it either.”

“Or they’re better at keeping secrets than we are.”

“If they knew what it looked like or where it was, they’d have it and we’d all be—” Sawyer flipped his dark, supple hands over so that the palms faced the starry night sky.

“Cannon fodder,” I muttered.

“Would you like to know what I learned about the
Key of Solomon
?” Xander smiled.

I straightened. “Where is it?”

“The key is with the Phoenix.”

I’d heard that before. It didn’t make me any happier this time.

“I don’t have it,” I said.

“Not you. An actual phoenix.”

“Say what?”

“A legendary ancient Egyptian bird.”

“I know what it is,” I muttered. “A myth.”

Xander’s gaze went to Sawyer. “Myths aren’t so mythical anymore.”

Everything I’d ever considered legendary—werewolves, vampires, ghosts, you name it—was a helluva lot more real than I was comfortable with.

“We have to go to Egypt?” I asked. “That’s gonna take a while.”

Xander, who’d seemed so with it, suddenly didn’t. His face crumpled; he began to blink as if trying to recall something that was long gone.

“Xander?” I said, alarmed. “You okay?”

“Give him time,” Sawyer murmured. “It isn’t easy to walk between worlds.”

Xander stopped blinking. “I was at my office,” he said. “And I heard footsteps. I thought it was you—”

“But it wasn’t. Did you see who—?”

Xander shook his head. I wasn’t surprised. Ghosts don’t know who killed them, which is often what makes them ghosts.

Whitelaw’s gaze fell to his feet. He kicked a bit of dirt at the circle, and when it fell back on his shoe as if it had hit an invisible wall, he lifted his gaze to mine. “I’m dead.”

Then poof—he disappeared.

“Hey!” I ran to the circle, but the only thing there now was the hat. “Bring him back!”

“Can’t.” Sawyer leaned over and scooped the hat off the ground, then handed it to me.

“Bullshit,” I muttered. “You can do anything.”

“No,” he said softly. “I can’t.”

“Where did he go?”

Sawyer twirled his hand toward the sky, then let it fall and pointed to the ground as he shrugged.

“I wasn’t finished asking him questions.”

“Once ghosts realize they’re dead, or once they’ve completed their unfinished business, they’re no longer ghosts.”

From nowhere, Sawyer produced a cigarette; he snapped his fingers and produced a match the same way. After lighting the end, drawing smoke deeply into his lungs, then letting it trickle out through his nose, he contemplated the fire.

“Have you ever encountered an actual phoenix?” I asked.

“I’ve seen so many things.” Sawyer took another drag, then blew the smoke upward in a steady, gray stream.

It didn’t pay to point out that smoking was unhealthy. Breathing had become unhealthy for members of the federation, and since killing Sawyer was damn near impossible, I didn’t think mouth, throat or lung cancer was much of an issue.

If I were the Pollyanna type—and I wasn’t—I’d think that facing constant death and eternal destruction did have an upside. We could practice every vice we’d once given up without a care. Smoking, drinking, drugs, STDs—go nuts—they were no longer going to kill us any time soon.

Of course other cares had taken their place. We might not have to worry about cancer or AIDS, but there were always demons, fiery hell pits and the end of the world.

Sawyer tossed his cigarette onto the fire, then stared into the distance with a thoughtful expression. I moved closer, figuring he was going to impart all the wisdom he’d compiled on the Phoenix. Or at least tell me where I could go to get it.