Apocalypse Happens (17 page)

If I closed my eyes I could delude myself; I could forget—momentarily—about the boy channeling the woman and once again see Ruthie Kane.

Nearly everything about her was sharp—her mind, her elbows, not to mention her spiky hips and knobby knees. I never could figure out how a woman who resembled a bag of bones could give the softest, sweetest hugs on the planet. The kind of hugs people lived—and died—for.

She’d fold me into her arms, and the fluff of her steadily graying Afro would brush my face as I listened to the sturdy thud of her great big heart. I missed those hugs so damn much.

I opened my eyes. The kid looked nothing like her,
and if I tried to hug him, I’d probably wind up with a black eye. Not that I needed a hug or anything.

Yeah, I didn’t believe it either.

“What’s that mean?” I asked. “Time will tell?”

“The future is . . . murky.”

My eyebrows lifted. “I thought the future was written.”

“It is. Unfortunately, the way it’s written . . .” Luther’s huge hands spread wide. “Could mean anything.”

I rubbed my forehead. Why did I even
try
to make sense of my life?

“Listen.” I dropped my hand. “I had a . . .” I paused, frowned. “Well, I thought I was dream walking, but—” Quickly I explained what I’d seen and how I’d seen it.

Luther’s mouth turned down, just the way Ruthie’s always had whenever life threw her an unpleasant curve. “Not dream walking,” she muttered.

“You’re sure?”

Those familiar eyes in that unfamiliar face met mine. “Coffin, dirt, graveyard. The dead don’t dream, Lizbeth.”

“If you say so.”

“I do. This was a message.”

“From whom?”

“The usual messenger,” Ruthie said, obviously still thinking. “This woman was dead, and then she wasn’t.”

“And how does that happen exactly?”

“Someone, or something, raised her.”

“Zombie?” I’d never met one, but that didn’t mean they weren’t around.

Luther’s curls flew as his head moved left, right and left again. “Zombies don’t run; they shuffle. They aren’t very pretty either. The decay don’t go away just ’cause
they’re above ground instead of below. But what zombies really don’t do is turn into birds and fly.”

“What does?”

Ruthie held up one long, brown finger. “First, tell me about the bag she carried. Size. Shape. Weight.”

I placed my hands four inches apart. “About like this.” Then I did the same lengthwise and added a few inches to the space. “And this. Weighed a pound or so.”

Ruthie’s gaze remained on mine. “If you had to guess, what would you say was inside?”

I closed my eyes, imagined again what it felt like to be the woman in the grave. I shivered at the memory—the dirt in my nose and mouth, the darkness all around me, the press of the earth, the smell and the madness that hovered very close to the surface.

“Focus, Lizbeth. What was in the bag?”

I stood in the exquisite rays of the rising sun, felt the cool, damp morning dew on my feet and my face; then I lifted my hand—scratched and bleeding, but already healing—to the satchel looped around my neck.

As soon as I touched it, I got a flash so strong it made me stagger and open my eyes. “Whoa, what the hell?”

I’d never been able to touch something in my memory and see it. Of course I’d never been able to enter anyone’s mind without first physically touching them; I’d never “become” someone the way that I’d become the woman in the grave.

“What did you see?” Ruthie’s gaze was intense; Luther held his breath.

“A book. Very old. Had a crest on the front.” I scowled, staring into the distance, thinking so hard I risked a brain embolism. “A star.”

“Five points or six?”

I closed my eyes and laboriously counted as I held on to the image in my head with all the power that I had. A bead of sweat slid from my brow, tickling first my cheek and then my neck. “Six.”

“Hexagram.” Relief colored Ruthie’s voice.

I opened one eye. “That’s good?”

“Yes and no. Pentagram—five points—can be white or black magic. Just depends.”

“But a hexagram?”

“Jewish magical symbol. Legends state it came into use after being discovered on a signet ring transcribed with the secret four-letter name of God.”

“Which is?”

Luther’s eyes rolled. “A
secret
, Lizbeth.”

I lifted my hands, surprised to discover they were shaking. I put them behind my back, clasping my fingers together in an attempt to still the trembling. “Forget I asked.”

“What else?” Ruthie pressed.

I reached again into the dark recesses of another mind. “Lions?”

Luther’s head bobbed. “The seal was used to mark magical icons of legend and the sacred name was replaced with lions, which were a symbol of Solomon.”

I started, but Ruthie continued to speak. “The hexagram with the lion accents is known as the Seal of Solomon.”

Solomon. Swell.

“The key is with the Phoenix,” I murmured.

Which explained how the dead woman had come back to life, then turned into a brightly colored bird and flown into the sun. I don’t know why I hadn’t caught on before. My only excuse, one I’d used many times before, was that I’d been a little busy to connect
the dots since I’d been dealing, again, with half demons that were trying to kill me.

“Now what?” I asked.

“You’ll have to infiltrate the Nephilim.”

“Excuse me?” My voice was so loud I startled a bird from a nearby bush.

“How you think you’re gonna get the key back?”

“Kill them all and take it?”

“Could.” Luther’s bony shoulders lifted, then lowered. “But there’s a lot more of them than there were, and they’re gettin’ stronger every day. Infiltrating is a better bet.”

“They know me. I’m not going to be able to sneak up and pretend to be one of them.”

“Don’t sneak, child; walk right in the front door and volunteer.”

“And they’ll believe my sudden change of heart because they’ve all had recent lobotomies?”

“No, Lizbeth.” Luther took a deep breath, then let it out slowly, looked toward the mountain, up at the sky, back to the house, the hogan and finally me. “They’ll believe it because the Phoenix is your mother.”

CHAPTER 17

I was speechless. Might be a first. But seriously, what could I say to a revelation like that?

“I—uh—” I blinked several times and finished with, “What?”

“Did you think your name was plucked out of a hat?”

“Sure.”

“It wasn’t.”

I wrestled with the word “duh.” If I let that comment past my lips, I’d only get smacked. I swallowed hard; it felt as if the comment were literally a rock in my throat, but I forced it down.

“Isn’t this something I should have been told before she rose from the dead and flew off with the key to ruling the world?” Or at least all the demons in it.

“What good would it have done?”

“What good?” My voice rose; hysteria bubbled just beneath the surface. “What
good
? Isn’t knowledge power?”

“She was
dead
, Lizbeth. I had no idea she would crawl out of her grave and fly away.”

“Isn’t that what a phoenix does?”

“Not exactly.” Luther’s full, youthful mouth puckered in a very Ruthie-like way. “A phoenix dances
upon the flames of its funeral pyre, then rises from its own ashes to live another thousand years.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” I muttered. “My mother was—
is
—a Nephilim.”

It was a revelation on par with discovering that the Uncle Charlie everyone was always referring to had the last name of Manson.

“Not exactly,” Ruthie repeated.

“
What
exactly?”

“She’s other.”

“Like Sawyer?”

“No one’s like Sawyer.”

Another comment that deserved a “duh” but wouldn’t be getting one.

I thought back to what I’d been told about those who were “other.” Grigori plus human equals Nephilim. Nephilim plus human births a breed. But a Nephilim breeding with a Nephilim gave rise to something apart from both humans and monsters. A being that could never truly be either one. By combining two forces of evil, those that were other could become stronger than either of the parents who created them.

“My mother is other,” I murmured. “The product of two Nephilim.”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, the demon began to laugh. I ignored it. I was getting better at that by the minute.

“What kind of Nephilim?” I asked.

Luther shrugged. “Seers see the Nephilim at hand, not their entire family tree.”

“Someone should know.”

Luther glanced toward the mountain again, then quickly back. “Perhaps. But not me.”

“What about my father?”

“What about him?”

“Who is he? Where is he? Should I expect him to try and kill me any time soon?”

“I’ve never heard a word about your father.”

“I’m supposed to believe that?”

“I’ve never lied to you, child.”

I laughed. “You told me I was an orphan.”

“You were as far as I knew. Your mother
was
dead, your father a mystery.”

I stared into the familiar dark eyes set in a face that was far too young for them and wondered. Had Ruthie ever lied to me? She’d omitted a helluva lot, but an out-and-out lie? I wasn’t sure. I did know that if she’d lied, she’d had a good reason. I also knew that if she’d lied for that good reason, she certainly wasn’t going to admit the truth to me now just because I’d asked.

“You’ll meet her soon,” Ruthie said, “and then your questions will be answered.”

All my life I’d craved a mother. Even after I’d found Ruthie, or she’d found me, and the constant ache had faded, I’d still wondered; sometimes I’d dreamed. Now I had a mother, and she was a double-damned half demon. Or maybe a quarter demon. So what did that make me?

Same thing I’d always been.

A freak, but a very, very powerful one.

“Okay,” I managed. “Where do I go from here?”

“Infiltrate the Nephilim, take the book, do whatever’s necessary to send the Grigori back to Tartarus.”

“I don’t believe the Nephilim are going to buy my defection.”

“There’ll be tests.” Ruthie sighed, and glanced away again. “There always are.”

“What kind of tests?”

A long, dark finger tapped against the glittering
stones of my dog collar. “There’s a reason for this. A reason for everything.”

“The only way to fight them is with a darkness as complete as they are,” I murmured.

“Exactly.”

“Jimmy—” I began.

The boy’s huge palm cupped my cheek, but Ruthie stared out of his eyes. “I’d never send you there alone, child.”

Then the kid blinked, and she was gone.

“Wait—” I began. But it was too late. “Shit.”

Luther dropped his hand from my face and backed up. I tried not to be offended when he rubbed his palm on his pants.

“Sounds like you need to go,” he said.

“Wish I knew where. I doubt the forces of evil are all gathering for a convention in a town called Hell.”

“You never know.”

My gaze sharpened. “Do
you
know?”

He shook his head and silence settled between us. I wasn’t sure what else to say.
Take care. Watch your back. Trust no one. Kill first; ask questions later.
He knew all that, had probably known it before he’d met me.

“Well”—I cleared my throat—“no sense hanging around.”

“You gotta fly to Milwaukee? Have the gargoyle let you back into . . . ?” He pointed to the ground.

“No.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a plastic bag containing a spoonful of dirt. “I have a key.”

“Stole earth from the Otherworld.” Luther’s mouth curved. “Nice.”

In truth, I hadn’t stolen it, though I should have. I hate to admit it, but possessing the key to the lock on the Otherworld was nothing short of an accident.

If I’d been thinking clearly, if I’d still been the me I once was, I never would have left Jimmy behind with no way of getting him back. That I had only showed how far away from the old me I’d come.

When I’d returned from the Otherworld, I’d found grit in my hair, underwear and socks, so I’d gathered it into my palm; then I’d put it into this bag.

“If Sawyer shows up . . .” I paused and Luther tilted his head, waiting. I sighed. “Never mind.”

“He could help,” Luther said. “Just let me know where—”

“No,” I said. All I needed was for all three of us—or four, or even five if Luther told Sawyer and Summer where we’d be—to go charging into Nephilim land. That would
really
look suspicious. I still wasn’t sure how I was going to manage it.

I headed for the nearest hill, which in New Mexico was more of a mountain. I wouldn’t need to go all the way up. Considering how I’d gotten in the last time, I figured a foothill would do.

On the way, I glanced back at Sawyer’s place. I thought Luther would be watching, maybe he’d even wave, but he was gone.

The wind swept across the desert, dry and hot, ruffling the short, shaggy length of my hair. I found myself straining to hear Ruthie’s whisper on that wind, missing it and her all over again. Sometimes I was so damn lonely.

I’m here
, the demon whispered.

“Not for long.”

The only response was more laughter.

I lay on the crackling dry scrub, ignoring the rocks that cut into my shoulders. Quickly I took a pinch of earth, held it up to the clouds, thought better of the
angle considering the wind and lowered my arm before releasing it.

The remnants of the Otherworld cast across my cheeks and chin like silt, and like before, the ground beneath me churned as the sky fell away, and the earth closed in.

Darkness reigned. I didn’t dare breathe. For a long, terrifying instant, I lay caught between one world and the next. My muscles tensed as I prepared to fight my way out; then the earth beneath me loosened, and I tumbled free.

At first I thought the dirt in my ears was scratching together too close to my eardrums and creating a god-awful racket. Then I shook my head; the dirt came out, and the sound became even louder.