Apocalypse Happens (8 page)

“Liz. I’ve ended more Nephilim here than I ever managed when my seer was alive.”

“Your seer died?”

“In the recent purge.”

Jimmy turned away, but not before I saw the pain flash across his face. He still thought it was his fault.

Technically it was. Jimmy could dream walk—stroll through a person’s mind while they were sleeping and pluck secrets from the mist. That he’d been compelled to steal the names and locations of the federation’s members from Ruthie’s head by his vampire father did not make what Jimmy had done hurt him any less. That so many had died because of it—that Ruthie had—was something he might never get over.

“You need a new seer?” I asked.

“I work here now.” Quinn shrugged. “I’ve no need of anything else.”

Good. One less thing. If I ever got my own power back, became the seer I was supposed to be before everything went to hell—or before hell came to me—I’d take him on. I’d lost a few DKs in the purge too. I had openings.

The dead bolt on the back door clicked. All three of us froze, glancing first at one another and then at the door as it began to open.

The next instant, we were behind the thick shrubs that separated Megan’s yard from the yard to the north. I hoped the neighbor didn’t have a yippy dog that would announce our presence.

Megan stepped onto her porch, her gaze searching the shadows. She wore a pair of Max’s old department sweatpants, cut off above the knee, and a shamrock green tank top that read:
Murphy’s
.

She looked exactly the same—short and cute, with curling red hair and dark blue eyes, a few freckles on her darling pert nose. Her arms were round but toned—from lugging around three kids, their stuff, trays of
food and drinks—her legs solid and sleek. Twelve hours a day on your feet will do that.

“Liz?” she murmured.

I bit my lip, forced myself to remain silent. If she knew I was here, she’d want to spend time with me, talk awhile. I wanted that too. I missed her so damn much. But I couldn’t hang around, couldn’t risk any Nephilim seeing me with her, knowing how much I cared. So far I’d been lucky. But luck never went my way for very long.

Megan sighed. Her shoulders sagged. I felt like a shit. I promised myself I’d call as soon as I could and do my best to reassure her that everything was fine.

Jimmy tapped my shoulder. I turned my head, and he jerked his at Quinn. The gargoyle stared at Megan with an expression I recognized—complete fascination and utter devotion.

“He loves her,” Jimmy whispered. “Nothing will
ever
hurt her while he’s here.”

For an instant I closed my eyes and remembered what it was like to know that Jimmy loved me that way and what it had been like to destroy that love for the sake of the world.

Sucked, but I’d do it again.

I wasn’t sure how I felt about a gargoyle being in love with my best friend and my partner’s widow, but Jimmy was right.

That devotion would keep Megan alive.

Eventually she went back inside. I hurried along the side of the neighbor’s house and onto the street a block away. Jimmy and I would only have to cut around one more corner and we’d be back at Murphy’s, where we’d left the car.

Quinn emerged from the shadows with his pants
on. At least he was human enough to know that walking down the street naked would get him noticed.

“Thank you.” I held out my hand, and Quinn took it. I had a flash of fire on the ocean, ice bobbing in a sea of flames.

I tilted my head, and he smiled. “If I hurt her, feel free.”

I realized he’d just shown me the way to kill him, although I wasn’t sure how flames could dance on water and ice survived fire, but if he hurt her, I’d figure it out. That he’d shown me such a secret made me trust him even more.

I handed Quinn my cell phone number. “If you need help—”

He pocketed it and nodded.

“We should go,” I said.

Though we were alone on the street, we couldn’t hang around. Someone might glance out the window. A cop could come by. We might not resemble gang members, but we had no business loitering on a street corner in the middle of the night. Who did?

Max had always told me “nothing good happens after midnight,” and he’d been right. If I was still a cop and I saw us, I’d pull over and run every one of us through the system. We’d all be detained. Jimmy’s record was . . . colorful, mine newly blackened and Quinn’s . . . Lord only knew what would turn up.

With a nod to the gargoyle, I turned toward the car, and Jimmy followed. “We need to get to New Mexico.”

“Summer’s not dumb enough to go there,” he said.

“I don’t need her. Sawyer’s been around long enough to know what a dagda is and where to find one.”

“Dagda?” Quinn echoed, and I froze, even as Jimmy cursed.

“Do you know where to find one?” I asked.

“One?” His face creased in confusion. “There is only one.”

“Explain.”

“
The
Dagda. The good God.”

I stilled as icy dread skated up my back. “The Dagda is a god.”

“No. There is only one of those. Although many aspire.”

Whew.

“So the Dagda is on our side?”

“Not necessarily.”

“But he’s good.”

“Not good as in morally, but good as in all-powerful. Good at everything.”

Well, I had been searching for an über-fairy.

“Do you know where he is?”

“He isn’t anywhere.”

“Everyone’s somewhere, Quinn. Spill it.”

“The Dagda has immense power. He can kill many with a single blow of his club and resurrect them simply by tapping the lifeless bodies with the handle. His caldron contains magic beyond compare.”

“Just the guy I need to see.” I narrowed my eyes. “Now.”

“Those who approach the Dagda do not return the same.”

I glanced at Jimmy, who appeared fascinated by the descending moon. “That’s exactly what I had in mind.”

“What do you want of him?”

I didn’t care to explain the particulars of Summer’s sex spell—even if I’d known them—that kept Jimmy’s
vampire nature dormant, unless there was a full moon, so I stuck to the facts.

“I need a spell reversed. He can do that, right?”

Quinn nodded, but still he hesitated. “The Dagda is both good and evil. He hasn’t yet chosen a side.”

“All the more reason to have a talk.” An all-powerful fairy god just might come in handy. “Point me in the right direction, Quinn, and I’ll do the rest.”

“There is no direction, mistress.” He cleared his throat when I gave him a narrow glare. “Liz,” he corrected. “The Dagda lives in the Otherworld, a land that exists parallel to this one.”

“Parallel,” I repeated.

He spread his hands. “Another realm that is beneath.”

“Beneath what?”

“The earth.”

“How far beneath? Tartarus level?”

His yellow-green eyes widened. “No! He isn’t a Grigori.”

“But he lives beneath.”

“The Dagda lives in the Otherworld because he does not care for this one.”

“Why not?”

“Do you?”

Actually, I did care for it, very much. Otherwise I wouldn’t be risking my life, love and the pursuit of all my happiness to save it. But explain that to a gargoyle.

“How do we get there?”

“I know the way.”

I shot a glance at Jimmy. He still stared at the sky. “Summer didn’t.”

“She wouldn’t. Until we chose a side—good or evil—we resided in the Otherworld. Summer chose right away.”

“Wow, she’s a saint,” I muttered.

“She may become one if the forces of light triumph. If the forces of darkness rule”—he shook his head—“I wouldn’t want to be her.”

If the forces of darkness ruled, I wasn’t going to want to be me. Hell, no one on our side was going to want to be us anymore if the demons ruled the world.

Which meant we had to move forward. Jimmy had to become again a darkness that was equal to my own. Ruthie had said that was the only way we could fight the Grigori that had been released and were even now repopulating the earth with a legion—that cursed word again—of Nephilim. We had to be as badass as they were.

“How do we get to the Otherworld?” I asked.

“I can open the door anywhere. All I need is a hill.”

He turned and slipped into a nearby yard. I reached for Jimmy’s hand, figuring I’d have to drag him, but he lifted both arms, as if in surrender. “I’ll come.”

I motioned for him to go ahead of me. I wasn’t stupid. I turned my back, and Jimmy went poof. He’d done it before.

But he followed Quinn without complaint. Jimmy’s hangdog behavior was bugging me more than his usual bravado. I almost wanted him to slug me, if only so I could slug him back.

In the yard a slight mound of grass made a pathetic hill, but Milwaukee wasn’t exactly rolling in them. I think the closest knoll was a good twenty-minute drive.

“Lie down,” Quinn ordered, and we did. From his pocket he drew a cloth bag.

“Dirt from the Otherworld,” he explained, then dipped his fingers within. “Only those who have been there possess it.”

He sprinkled the dirt over us. The falling specks felt like cool sand against my face. The scent of moist earth surrounded us. The sky appeared to be receding.

“Crap,” I said. But it was too late; we sank, the dirt streaming in on us from above, the ground sinking away below.

I reached for Jimmy’s hand again, managing to link our fingers together right before we were buried alive.

CHAPTER 8

I never thought it would end like this—suffocating as earth filled my mouth, my nose, blocked the starlight from my eyes. No, I figured I’d go down in a blaze of glory—sword slashing, blood everywhere—perhaps during the final battle called Armageddon.

Jimmy’s fingers tightened on mine, and the panic that had threatened receded. At least we were together. At least he hadn’t pulled away again.

Then we landed with a thud in a cool, gray, misty world, and Jimmy did pull away. I blinked and dirt cascaded off my lashes. I scrubbed it from my face, my eyes, my hair, then glanced up. The sky was brown; the earth beneath our feet swirled like a cloud.

“Upside down,” Jimmy murmured.

We stood. The mist was so thick we couldn’t see anything but each other.

“Now what, Sherlock?” Jimmy asked.

“We find the Dagda.”

“By wandering around blindly, dropping off the edge of time and into a hell dimension?”

Music flowed on the mist; it sounded like a—

“Harp.” I smiled. “They don’t play harps in hell.”

“How do you know? If I were a demon—”

“You are.”

“Do you really want to throw that stone?”

Good point.

“If I were a demon,” he continued, “I’d use harps to lure the unwary right into the pit.”

“I’ll remember that.” And I would, because he was probably right.

The harp music drifted closer, became louder. Jimmy and I pulled out our silver knives. I always felt better with something sharp and shiny in my hand.

From the fog stepped a tall, broad man with a huge club slung about his waist. In one arm he held a harp made of glistening, polished, intricately carved wood, with strings of gold that he plucked with large yet nimble fingers.

His hair was the sun and his eyes the sky. His teeth when he smiled were as white as winter ice and his lips the shade of a sunset in the west.

He was huge—everywhere. About eight feet tall, several feet wide, probably three hundred pounds. How could he walk on the clouds? Big feet, big hands and a codpiece—who wore those anymore?—the size of a dinner plate, which appeared to barely contain his impressive package.

At the sight of us he paused. The harp disappeared, as did his smile. The silence that descended when the music died seemed to pulse in my ears like thunder.

He reached for his club; the thing detached from his belt and flew through the air into his hand. “How did you get in?”

“Quinn.”

He relaxed somewhat, though he didn’t put the club back.

“Are you the Dagda?”

He stared me up and down, the perusal as blatant
as any I’d received while tending bar at Murphy’s. “Who wants to know?”

“Elizabeth Phoenix.”

His smile returned. “The leader of the light.”

“Word travels,” Jimmy said.

“I am not completely cut off from your world. My people come here for rest, for protection, for . . .” He grinned again. “Vacation.”

“Seems like a real rockin’ place,” I said.

“It is peaceful. No one can enter the Otherworld who has not been here before. Or who is not given entry by one of us. This is not bestowed lightly.” He swung his club, one slash right and then left, and the displaced air nearly blew us off our feet. “If I am displeased by those granted entry, they die. Badly.”

“People always say that,” Jimmy murmured. “But really, what is ‘dying goodly’?”

The Dagda scowled, seemingly annoyed by the mere sound of Sanducci’s voice. “Silence your pet, light’s leader, or I will silence him for you.”

“You can try.” Jimmy stepped forward.

I elbowed him back. “This is not a pissing contest, Sanducci.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“Behave,” I muttered. “We need him.”

“You come to convince me to join your fight,” the Dagda continued.

“Eventually,” I agreed. “But first things first. I’d like you to remove a spell.”

“From your collar?”

I reached up and fingered the jewels. “No. From him.”

The Dagda’s gaze turned toward Jimmy, and he took in a deep breath, tilted his head and frowned.
“Plenus luna malum,” he said, reciting the name of the spell. “His vampire is beneath the moon.”

“Yes. I was told that you could release it.”

“It will not be easy for me. Or comfortable for him.”

“But you
can
do it.”

“I can do anything.”

Jimmy snorted, and I sent him a glare before returning my attention to the Dagda.

“Will you?” I asked.

The Dagda’s gaze slid over me. “For a price.”

“No,” Jimmy said. “She’s mine.”

The words “since when” were on the tip of my tongue, but Jimmy narrowed his eyes, and I kept them to myself.