Apocalypse Happens (21 page)

I stroked my thumb over him again, breathed in, opened my mind . . . and I didn’t see anything at all.

I lifted my gaze. “What did he do to you?”

“Does it matter?”

It would always matter. There just wasn’t anything I could do about it. What had happened had happened. That I’d let it, that I’d basically ordered it, even if I hadn’t been the one to hurt him, did matter. I’d had the power to stop the horror, and I wouldn’t.

I understood that a lot of Jimmy’s anger, his inability to touch me and let me touch him, stemmed from the knowledge that if we had to do it all over again, I’d do the same thing.

Since I could practically feel his skin crawling beneath mine, I let him go. In this form, there was only so much torture I could stomach.

I had the ability to separate Vampire Jimmy and Dhampir Jimmy; I knew that what the first one did and said had nothing to do with the other. I thought Jimmy understood the same about Vamp Liz and Lizzy. I’m sure he did—in theory.

But men are visual, which is why porn really turns them on, and for women, who are emotional, not so much. So while I could separate the two Jimmys because of the way I felt about each one, even though they looked exactly the same, Jimmy might be having a bit of difficulty getting past his conflicting feelings over what appeared to be exactly the same woman.

The problem was that the Lizzy I’d been, the one he’d fallen in love with, was gone, and I didn’t think she was ever coming back. Which left a woman he didn’t know and one he didn’t like in the same package.

“There are things we have to do that we don’t want to do,” I began.

“You think I don’t know that? I was eighteen, Lizzy, when Ruthie made me—” He stopped and shoved a shaking hand through his sweaty, tangled hair.

“Kill?” I prompted.

He blew air through his lips in a halfhearted Bronx cheer as he dropped his arm back to his side. “I was a killer long before that.”

I hated it when he called himself a killer. I didn’t think dusting Nephilim was killing. However, Jimmy had been on the streets a lot longer than I had, and he’d done things before coming to Ruthie’s that even I didn’t know about. Things I probably didn’t want to know about.

“You remember what she made me do,” he said, referring, I assumed, to his sleeping with Summer. “I knew it would hurt you,” he murmured, “but I did it anyway.”

“Why?”

“It had to be done.”

“There you go.” I threw up my hands. “So why can’t you forgive me?”

“I don’t know. Have you forgiven me?”

I thought of Summer’s beautiful face, her tiny, adorable body, her blond hair and blue eyes and her everlasting, unbreakable devotion to Jimmy Sanducci. “No.”

His lips curved just a little, and I saw again the boy who’d taken my heart and then broken it apart.

“I didn’t think so,” he said.

Jimmy was putting on his sinfully expensive Nikes, which he’d probably gotten for free after he took the most recent publicity photo of Venus Williams or Tiger Woods or whoever the top shoe hawker was this week, when he suddenly paused and asked, “What now?”

“We find the Dagda and get out from under.”

“And then?”

Jimmy was a little behind the times. Quickly I told him everything.

“Your mother,” he repeated, seemingly as stunned as I’d been. But what seemed to be true and what was true these days were often two completely different things.

“You didn’t know?” I watched him closely. Jimmy was an extremely good liar. He had to be. I could probably separate truth from fiction if I touched him. However, if I touched him one more time today, one or both of us would probably wind up bloody. Again.

“I thought she was dead.”

Hmm. Voice casual, gaze direct. He didn’t appear to be lying, but I couldn’t be sure.

“You thought she was dead, but you knew she was a phoenix? Or you just thought my mother, whoever she might be, was dead?”

“I choose door number two.” He finished tying his silver-tipped laces and stood.

My eyes narrowed. “Sanducci—”

He held up a hand. “I didn’t know, okay? I thought you were an orphan like me.”

“You weren’t an orphan.”

The past flickered in his eyes, and I was sorry I’d even brought it up.

“I wasn’t,” he agreed. “But I am now.”

“Not necessarily.” His eyes widened, and I held up my hand just as he had. “I’m just saying, parents seem to be coming out of the woodwork lately. Your dad. Sawyer’s mom. And now mine.”

“And they’re all such fantastic finds,” he muttered.

“Yeah, the reunions are a hoot. Although . . .” I paused, thinking. “I haven’t met my mother. Maybe—”

“Don’t go there,” Jimmy interrupted.

“Where?”

“Thinking that maybe she’s not evil, maybe you can have a relationship, maybe things will be different. They won’t be. She rose from the dead, Lizzy. That can’t be good.”

“It was once,” I muttered.

“And once is all we get. Anyone rising from the dead these days is gonna be a problem.”

He was right. Still—

“Sawyer’s other, and he’s not evil.”

“You sure about that?”

“Yes!”

Jimmy just raised his eyebrows. My voice
had
been too loud, the word too emphatic, for him to believe me. Hell,
I
didn’t believe me.

“Think about it,” he said. “Guy up and disappears.”

“He does that.”

Sanducci stared at me until I squirmed. Everything I said was too loud or too quick and not very believable at all. Why couldn’t I lie like he did?

“Don’t you find it strange that Sawyer can raise the dead and suddenly the dead are being raised?” Jimmy asked.

“He can’t raise the dead, only ghosts.”

“So
he
says.”

I opened my mouth, shut it again, then said, “What?”

“
Someone
raised the Phoenix.”

“You think it was
Sawyer
?”

“Lizzy, I
always
think it’s Sawyer.”

CHAPTER 21

“I don’t believe Sawyer would do that,” I said. “Even if he could, which he can’t.”

“Let’s go see.”

“How?”

“Find her, find him.”

“We won’t,” I insisted.

“Wanna bet?” He held out his hand, then realized what he was doing and yanked it back.

The two of them had always been like junkyard dogs, circling each other, hackles raised, teeth bared, with me right in the middle. More often than not, whenever they shared the same air they tried to kill each other. It was exhausting.

I headed for the cave entrance. One thing Sanducci was right about was that we needed to get out of here, and the only way to do that was to find the Dagda.

Outside, the mist still roamed, impossibly thick.

“Dagda!” I shouted.

“I’m here.”

The voice was so close I jumped, but I couldn’t see him anywhere near no matter how hard I tried. You could go blind in this place straining to see your hand in front of your face.

“Where?”

“What do you need?”

I opened my mouth to tell him I needed to see who I was speaking with, and Jimmy murmured, “Just get us out of here.”

Understanding that Jimmy didn’t want to see the fairy god again—I couldn’t blame him—I swallowed the words I’d been about to utter. “We need to get out.”

“Where you came in or somewhere else?”

I glanced at Jimmy, but I couldn’t see his face. “That’s possible?”

The Dagda’s chuckle slithered across my skin as chill as the mist. “Here, all things are possible.”

Jimmy snorted.

“Where should we go?” I asked.

“Did you see anything in your vision, or whatever it was,” Jimmy said, “that might give us a hint where the Phoenix flew?”

Before, I’d been able to close my eyes and access the images. I tried, but time had faded them. I could still see the graveyard, the sky, the Phoenix, but I could no longer put myself into the scene and deepen it.

I sighed and opened my eyes. “She went into the sun.”

“Rising sun, so east.”

“Considering we don’t know east from where, not helpful.”

Jimmy let out his breath in a huff. “We’ll need to find out where there are disturbed graves.”

“And then visit every site?” My voice rose in exasperation.

Jimmy had told me once that no matter what we did to prevent it, the Apocalypse just kept on coming. At the time, I’d thought he was overreacting. Now, not so much.

“The Phoenix has the key,” I continued. “I don’t think we have that much time.”

“You got a better idea?”

“Not really. If we had an Internet connection, then the Dagda could pop us out at the first tumbled graveyard. Don’t suppose you’re computer literate,” I called out.

“You’d suppose right.” The Dagda’s huge form solidified from the mist. Jimmy tensed so fast I thought he might snap his spine. “However, I have something much better than a computer.”

“Better?” Jimmy and I said at the same time.

“Follow me.” The Dagda ducked into the cave, and after a quick exchange of shrugs we did too.

In the few seconds it took us to catch up, the Dagda had retrieved a heavy iron caldron from somewhere and hung it over the fire. The sound of something boiling, bubbling, filled the still, damp air of the cavern, and the Dagda beckoned.

I moved forward, and Jimmy caught at my shoulder. “Don’t.”

“I think I have to.” He shook his head, frowning in the Dagda’s direction. Though I wanted to stand with Jimmy’s hand voluntarily on my shoulder for as long as he’d let it stay there, I inched away. “I’ll be right back, and then we’ll leave together, okay?”

“You don’t have to talk to me like I’m a scared little kid who just woke up from a nightmare.”

“How should I talk to you?”

“Like you always do.”

“Rude, crude and downright mean?”

“I’d feel less like a crystal vase you’re terrified you might break.”

I contemplated Jimmy for several seconds. Despite
the natural olive cast to his skin, he was pale, his lips a thin, bloodless line. The circles beneath his eyes were the shade of a ripe eggplant, and no matter how hard he tried to hide it, his hands shook a bit.

He
was
fragile, and I was desperately afraid I’d already broken him. But it wouldn’t do any good to tell him that.

“You stay here,” I said. “I’ll go there, and if I want your opinion, I’ll beat it out of you.”

I was halfway to the Dagda’s caldron when I heard him laugh. It was almost, but not quite, the laugh I remembered. Maybe Sanducci could be fixed after all. Though probably not by me.

“Ask it what you wish to know.” The Dagda pointed a finger the width of a kielbasa at the caldron.

“I—uh—” I’d never asked anything of a pot before.

Whatever was inside—obviously liquid from the way it boiled—really heated up. Snap, crackle, pop—several of the bubbles burst, spewing trickles of a tar-like substance into the air, then onto the ground.

The Dagda made an impatient noise and jabbed his hand at the caldron again. “Ask!”

“Where is the Phoenix?” I blurted.

As suddenly as it had boiled over, the liquid stilled, the surface going smooth as ice beneath a moonless sky.

“Look.” The Dagda shoved me with his shoulder, and I nearly went headfirst into the pot.

Cautiously I peeked over the edge. All I saw was my own face reflected there. “Doesn’t seem to be working.”

The Dagda’s visage appeared next to mine. “
You’re
the Phoenix,” he said.

“My name is Phoenix; I’m not one.” At least not yet. “I meant
the
Phoenix. The one who was raised from the dead. The one who carries the
Key of Solomon
.”

Before the last word had left my mouth, my reflection disappeared and another took its place. I recognized it instantly. The graveyard where I’d first seen my mother. All the graves were tumbled open, the place as still and empty as a postapocalyptic world.

“That’s where she was,” I said. “Where
is
she?”

“Wait,” the Dagda whispered.

The image wavered but did not disappear. Instead, the focus widened, as if we were a camera and the black smooth liquid the lens. The view pulled back, revealing more and more of the area around the cemetery. To the right stood a sign.

“ ‘Cairo,’ ” I read. “ ‘Population three thousand, one hundred and fifty.’ Seriously?”

I thought Cairo was huge—and in Egypt. Which made the grass and the trees in the foreground as well as the small-town streets spreading into the background a mystery.

“There’s more than one Cairo,” Jimmy said.

I glanced over my shoulder. He’d actually stayed where I’d put him, which I attributed to the Dagda’s presence rather than Sanducci’s obedience.

“How many more?”

“Not sure about other countries—”

“It’s in the U.S.,” I interrupted. I’d seen signs like that a thousand times.

“Well, then.” Jimmy took a breath. “Cairo, Kentucky. West Virginia. Illinois. New York. Georgia.”

I cursed quietly.

“Relax, light’s leader. I’m not a jinn. You get more wishes than three.”

“Jinn?” I cast him a narrow glare. “As in genie?”

“He’s kidding,” Jimmy said.

“Does he know how?”

The Dagda smiled. “I have learned much in all my years beneath the earth. Humor is only one joy of many.”

“So there aren’t any genies?”

“I didn’t say that,” Jimmy murmured. “They just don’t hand out wishes.”

I rubbed my forehead. I really didn’t have the time for this, so I turned back to the caldron. “Which Cairo are we talking about?”

The view in the black water began to pan to the right, slowly, but still it made me dizzy. I couldn’t pull my gaze away even though my stomach rolled. Right before I considered throwing up just to feel better—hey, it worked with a hangover—the picture stopped moving.

Another sign—huge, more like a billboard, with a hokey pyramid, a doofy Sphinx and a stick figure Pharaoh that seemed to be dancing the “King Tut” mambo—appeared.

“ ‘Come to Cairo,’ ” I read. “ ‘A beautiful city along America’s Nile, right at the foot of Little Egypt.’ ” I scowled. “Is this a riddle?”