Apocalypse Happens (7 page)

Xander had been studying the legends for years. He understood more about revelatory prophecy than just about anyone else. He’d put two and two together. He’d only needed me to come along and agree that it made four.

“Just look where knowing got him,” Jimmy said through his teeth.

“Ruthie was watching him,” I blurted. “She said he was good at his job.”

“But she didn’t ask him to put his neck on the line.” I flinched, remembering the huge hole that had been sliced into Xander’s throat because of me. “She knew better. Only beings with supernatural powers have any chance of living through a meeting with a Nephilim, and not even some of them. Who else have you told about this that isn’t one of us?”

“Nobod—” I froze, my lips still forming the word, but all the breath had left my body.

“Who?” Jimmy demanded.

My horrified gaze met his. I closed my mouth, swallowed, then managed to whisper, “Megan.”

CHAPTER 7

My best friend didn’t answer the phone—not at home and not at the bar.

Since it was around happy hour at Murphy’s, she could easily be snowed with customers. She wouldn’t answer until things settled down. Even if she did, I wouldn’t have been able to accept her assurances that everything was all right. I’m sure there were Nephilim that could mimic a person’s voice and their appearance. The only way I’d know if Megan was okay would be to go to Milwaukee and touch her.

Jimmy pointed Thane’s Navigator toward Wisconsin without my having to ask. “Anyone else in on the secret?”

“No.”

“You’re sure.”

“Yes.”

“You understand what a secret is, don’t you?”

I gave him a glare.

“What were you thinking?” he demanded.

“Megan saw a Nephilim. What was I supposed to do?”

“Lie.”

“That’s what you’re good at. Me, not so much.” Especially to Megan. She was a mom. She could smell
a lie before it even took form in my head, let alone came out of my mouth.

“You can’t put human beings in danger like this. Even if they’re aware of the Nephilim, they have no means of defending themselves against them.”

“I had a guard sent to watch over her.”

His forehead creased. “Who?”

“I’m—uh—not sure.”

“Do you know the meaning of ‘sent’?”

I narrowed my eyes and managed to keep my temper. “I asked Summer to send a DK, and she did.” Or so she’d said. I’d been a little too busy to follow up on that.

Jimmy gave me a quick glance, then returned his gaze to the road.

“She wouldn’t say she was going to do something and then not do it just to mess with me.” I grabbed his arm. “This is Megan’s life we’re talking about.”

Jimmy shifted, removing himself from my grasp. “You should’ve thought of that before you told her the truth.”

The Bradley Clock loomed up next to the freeway, behind it the skyline of Milwaukee, behind that the navy blue expanse of Lake Michigan. Another ten minutes and we’d be at Murphy’s.

We’d tried to reach Summer. I wasn’t shocked when she didn’t pick up for me, but she ignored Jimmy’s summons too. Of course if she was flying without wings it might be a little hard to answer a cell phone while avoiding low-cruising planes.

The Navigator had blown a tire outside of Gary, and Thane didn’t appear to believe in spares—or perhaps he’d had to toss it out in order to fit in all the ammunition beneath the rear panel.

Though both Jimmy and I were extremely strong and equally fast, we weren’t magic and we couldn’t manufacture a new tire from thin air like some people who weren’t really people. At any rate, the tire fiasco slowed us down, and we didn’t pull up outside of Murphy’s until long after closing.

Located on the East Side of Milwaukee, Murphy’s was a throwback to the time when every neighborhood had its own personal pub. Thus, houses surrounded Murphy’s. One of those was Megan’s—an aluminum-sided two-story where she lived with her three children: Anna, Aaron and Ben. I’d come to the house a thousand times before—but only one other time in the middle of the night. A night I never wanted to revisit—the night Max had died. I swallowed thickly as the memory loomed large.

She’d been waiting on the steps. She’d already known—and they called me psychic. But I guess when Max didn’t arrive home on time, when it was all over the news that there’d been a shooting in the city and an officer had died, she really hadn’t needed to be psychic, she hadn’t needed to look at my face or wait for me to open my mouth, to know her world had just changed.

I got out of the car and hurried the short distance to the house with Jimmy right behind me. He’d never been here before, never met Megan or Max, though I’m sure he’d heard about them from Ruthie.

Jimmy had been out of my life so completely for the past seven years that having him in it now still felt like a dream. Hell, my whole damn life felt like a dream these days—and not a very good one.

I paused on the porch steps. The night was clear and warm—exactly like the night Max had died. But the moon was different. Then it had been just a sliver; tonight it was headed toward full.

I glanced at Jimmy. When it became full, his demon would break free of its bond. I wasn’t sure what we were going to do about that. Jimmy reached for the doorbell.

“No,” I said quietly. “The kids.”

I didn’t want to scare them, and a doorbell in the middle of the night would. Hell, it would probably scare Megan. If she was still alive.

I reached for the knob, planning to break the lock. There wasn’t a door made by human hands that could keep me out any longer. But Jimmy hissed his disapproval and pulled a pair of lock picks from his pocket. Part demon, part Boy Scout. What a combo.

He motioned for us to head around back. Wouldn’t do for anyone to come along walking a dog and find us messing with the front door of Max Murphy’s house. Local police trolled this street more often than any other. Cops took care of their own, especially when one of their own went down in the line of duty.

Jimmy fiddled with the locks on the back door—no alarm. Too expensive. No dog. No time. But at least Megan had invested in a dead bolt, and that would take a little concentration to bypass—I stared out at the yard.

The house was large for a city house, with a lot of shrubs and some decent-sized trees, the grass littered with toys. The Murphy kids were five, six and eight, and they owned a lot of crap. Since I wasn’t all that familiar with kids, I wasn’t sure if they had more than the usual number or less.

In the far corner, a garden lay fallow. Megan always made big plans to grow vegetables, maybe even a flower or two, but since she had a hard enough time getting in a shower each day, gardening wasn’t really on the menu.

Something long and sleek and dark curved around the outer edge of the weedy plot. I moved closer, frowning at the statue of a panther. Megan didn’t seem the type.

In the dark, the thing was hard to see. Which might have been why it appeared slightly off—the shoulders and arms more like a man’s than a beast’s. The entire piece was ink black, except for the spooky sheen of its jeweled chartreuse eyes. Whoever had sculpted that had been either downright strange or just plain bad at it.

A muttered curse was followed by the clink of one of Jimmy’s lock picks against the porch. I spun around—I’d given him enough time; now I was just gonna break the door—and the wind picked up.

I paused, my head tilting as I listened. Not the sway of the leaves. Not the swish of the grass. What was that?

I faced the yard. The damned statue was missing.

“Shit,” I murmured.

As if my whisper had brought it to life, a large, lean black panther slunk along the edge of the garden, yellow-green eyes fixed on me. He no longer appeared half human but all beast.

The smooth slice of Jimmy’s switchblade announced his presence at my side. The cat shrieked, a wild, furious, primeval call that did not belong in a backyard in Milwaukee.

The animal’s tail switched back and forth. His paws were huge, his claws even huger. The thing snarled and bared teeth that seemed sharper than average, though my experience with panthers was very limited.

Jimmy flipped his knife around, something he did when he was nervous, then stepped forward. I pulled my own knife and joined him.

I was so glad we’d come to Milwaukee. The thought of that thing crashing into Megan’s house, hunting Megan and the kids . . .

The panther charged. I was so preoccupied with the image of finding the Murphys the same way I’d found Xander that I was too slow, and the beast slashed my arm. I dropped the knife.

Jimmy sliced the panther across the back. The animal roared, but he didn’t burst into ashes.

“Fuck,” Jimmy muttered.

Not a shifter. Which meant we could poke the panther with silver until we were old and gray, but he wasn’t going to die. Now what?

In the past, Ruthie would have told me ahead of time what we were facing. We would have found out how to kill him through research—books, Internet, phone calls to other DKs. But now we were floundering around a bit blind, and I hated it.

The panther crouched, belly to the ground, tail twitching, rear end shifting. Jimmy shouted, “Lizzy!” and threw himself in front of me just as the cat launched himself into the air.

As the paws left the earth, the animal became a man; inch by inch the beast arched, going up a panther, coming back down a person. He crashed into Jimmy, who smashed into me, and we all fell in a tangle of legs and arms onto the dry grass.

Jimmy grabbed for the guy, but he slipped away—it’s hard to get a grip on the naked. Instead of running or kicking, biting, scratching and punching, he went to his knees.

“Mistress,” he said, and kissed my foot.

“Oh, brother,” Jimmy muttered.

“I swear my allegiance.”

“Swell,” I said. “You can—uh—get up now.”

He got up; then I wished I’d let him stay down. Standing, naked in the moonlight, he was disturbing. Tall and sleek, he resembled the panther he’d so recently been. His hair shiny and dark, his eyes were an eerie yellow-green.

I glanced at the garden. “You were the statue.”

The man lowered his chin in agreement.

“He was a statue?” Jimmy asked. “And you didn’t think this was something I should know before I stuck him with silver?”

“I didn’t connect it right away.”

“You see a statue of a panther, then a panther shows up, but you don’t connect it.”

“Yeah, weird, hey? How bizarre that I didn’t realize the statue had come to life.”

Jimmy lifted his eyebrows at my sarcasm but didn’t comment; instead he turned to the panther man. “Gargoyle?” he asked.

The man spread graceful hands, the muscles rippling beneath his moon-pale skin. “I am.”

Gargoyles had once been animals. They’d aided the fairies left on the earth after the doors of heaven slammed closed.

The fairies had been lost. They had no idea how to survive. They were suddenly human, and they had no idea how to be.

Certain beasts of the earth helped them, and as a reward they were given the gifts of flight and shape-shifting. Gargoyles can sprout wings; they can turn to stone.

Once the fairies could manage on their own, the gargoyles were charged with protecting the weak and unwary from demon attacks. The more humans the gargoyles saved, the more human they became.

“Summer sent you,” I said.

The man nodded, his gaze on Megan’s second-floor window. “No one will hurt her while I am here.”

There was a slight cant of the Irish in his voice, but not much. I’d been told that many of the fairies had gravitated to Ireland after the fall because the rolling green hills reminded them of heaven. I’d bet money that a lot of the gargoyles had gone along.

Jimmy put away his switchblade. “What’s your name?” he asked.

“Quinn Fitzpatrick.”

“And you just hang out in Megan’s yard all night?” I asked.

“Shouldn’t I?”

“What about during the day?”

He grinned, his teeth no longer sharp and large but normal, if extremely white. “I’m the new bartender.”

My eyebrows lifted. “The one who’s so lame Megan doesn’t believe you can walk and chew gum at the same time?”

Quinn’s grin faded. “She said that?”

“Not in so many words.”

“Well, I didn’t want her to know, you see, that I was sent. So I had to pretend to be more human than I am.”

“By dropping things?”

“How else?”

I had no idea. How did one seem more human? If I knew, I’d have tried it long ago. I’d always been considered odd, even before Ruthie had touched me and made me even more so.

“Megan doesn’t know?”

“That I’m her bodyguard? No.”

“Keep it that way.”

Megan had told me in no uncertain terms that she didn’t need any help. She was wrong, so I’d ignored
her. But I wouldn’t put it past her to make life hell for Quinn if she discovered he was the babysitter.

“Have there been any Nephilim sniffing around?” I asked.

“Legion.”

Man, I hated that word.

“When you say ‘legion,’ ” I continued, “I don’t get a clear picture.”

“Dozens, mistress.” He straightened, puffing out his extremely nice chest. “They’re all dust.”

“Uh—nice job.”

I thanked God again that I’d sent someone to watch over Megan. Thanked Him three times that Summer had actually listened, and that she’d sent someone who knew what he was doing.

“The more Nephilim I kill, the more hours each day I can remain in this form,” he said. “Soon I will be completely a man.” He glanced up at the window again. “Although I do not protect her for my benefit. I would protect her even if I lost my humanity instead of gaining it.”

Hmm. Interesting.

“Any clues as to why they’re after her?” I asked.

“They aren’t after her, but you.” Quinn’s gaze met mine. “They think you’ll come back to see your friend. Visit your home.” He spread his huge paws—I mean hands. “The grave of your foster mother.” He peered around nervously. “You should go.”

“You’ll watch over Megan and the kids.”

He put his hand over his heart. “With my life, mistress.”

“Call me Liz.”