Apocalypse Happens (9 page)

“Sacrifices must be made,” the Dagda murmured. “You know that. Nothing is for free.”

“What, exactly, are we talking about?” I asked.

“A boon. A favor.”

“Could you be more specific?” I didn’t like promising what I didn’t understand.

“I don’t know now what I might need later.”

“No,” Jimmy repeated. “It’s too dangerous.”

“You wish the spell reversed; I am the only one powerful enough to do so.” The Dagda shrugged. “I wish for a boon from the leader of the light. It’s simple. Say yes and get what you came for, or say no and go back where you came from. And good luck winning your battle without the proper—”he lifted a brow—“equipment.”

Ruthie had said we needed to be as evil as they were to win, and I’d seen the truth of this myself when I’d fought the Naye’i. She’d had no humanity, no compassion, no restraint. She’d killed horribly and often and without remorse. I would never have been able
to best her without the physical strength and the inner fury of my demon. With the Grigori loose, creating Nephilim by the minute, we needed more power than mine. We needed Jimmy’s.

Since the Dagda appeared to be the only one who could remove the spell and release Jimmy’s demon, the choice was even simpler than the fairy god had made out. Because I didn’t have one.

“Just to be clear . . . You’ll release Jimmy’s demon
and
you’ll join our side,” I stated. “In return, I’ll do something unknown for you at a future date.”

“Both the spell and the choosing of sides,” the Dagda mused. “This will have to be a very great favor.”

“I figured that.”

He smiled. “So did I.”

“Don’t I have anything to say about this?” Jimmy asked.

“No,” the Dagda and I answered at the same time.

“How long will it take?” I asked.

“
Plenus luna malum
is not easily cast. I will do my best to be quick, but removing it is not simple either. You must leave him with me.”

“But—”

“You have work to do, light’s leader. You cannot tarry here.”

“You’ll let me know when he’s—” I stopped, uncertain what to say. Not
better
. Not
cured
or
healed
. More like
worse
. Cursed and possessed and insane with a lust for blood and death, destruction and chaos.

“Yes,” the Dagda agreed. “When we are finished, I will contact you.” I opened my mouth to ask how—he was underground—and the Dagda held up a hand. “I have ways. Do not worry about that.”

“You’ll have to bespell . . . something.” I traced the collar around my neck. “Or he’ll be—”

“I know what he’ll be, and I will take every precaution. I prefer my own blood right where it is and not soaking into the ground of the Otherworld.”

I took a deep breath, glanced at Jimmy, whose face was tense and pale, but I nodded, and Jimmy closed his eyes so he wouldn’t have to look at me anymore.

“The deal is made,” the Dagda said. “Now it must be sealed.”

“With blood, I suppose.”

“A kiss is so much more binding.”

“You want me to kiss you.”

He tilted his head. “Is that a problem?”

“I can just imagine what the ‘favor’s’ gonna be if you’re sealing the deal with a kiss,” Jimmy muttered. “But then that’s right up your alley.”

He was angry, hurt, betrayed. I couldn’t blame him for lashing out. So why did I?

“I could use more power.” I lifted one shoulder, then lowered it. “Why not his?”

Jimmy stared at me as if he’d just realized something and he didn’t much like it. “You’ve changed.”

I laughed. “You think?”

“No more talk.” The Dagda reached for me. Jimmy made a move, as if he’d put himself between us, and the fairy god sent him to the ground with one sharp glare from his ice-blue eyes.

“Stay,” the Dagda murmured, and then he kissed me.

As kisses went, it wasn’t so bad. A mere brush of his lips, soft and almost sweet—not even a hint of tongue. Unfortunately, at the first touch I saw the truth of what he’d do to Jimmy.

It
was
going to hurt.

I jerked back, my lips forming “no” but my voice too bound by horror to set the word free.

The Dagda’s intent gaze bored into mine. “Do you choose to spare him even if it means the end of the world?”

And that “no” I’d been choking on flew free.

CHAPTER 9

The next instant I was on top of the hill instead of below it. I laid my hand against the cool green grass and murmured, “Sorry.”

Then I got to my feet and I left Jimmy behind.

Quinn had disappeared. I assumed he was making like a statue in Megan’s garden again, which was where he should be. I should be—

Anywhere but here.

I got in the Navigator and headed for the airport. The only place I could think to go was New Mexico.

Eight hours later, I stepped off the plane in Albuquerque—flights from Milwaukee to the Southwest were few and far between—then rented a car and drove north.

Sawyer lived at the very edge of the Navajo reservation near Mount Taylor, one of the four sacred mountains that marked the boundaries of Navajo land, known as the Dinetah, or the Glittering World. In that world, strange things happened. Especially around Sawyer.

I drove through flat, arid plains that would eventually give way to mountain foothills dotted with towering ponderosa pines. Canyons surrounded by high, spiked, sandy shaded rock shared space with the red
mesas immortalized forever in the westerns of John Ford.

I was still a few miles from Sawyer’s place when a lone black wolf appeared next to my car. Most wolves wouldn’t have been able to keep pace at 60 miles per hour, but this wasn’t most wolves.

I pulled to the side of the road and stepped out. The beast paused in the mesquite scrub and stared at me, tongue lolling, spooky gray eyes fixed on my face.

“How did you know I was coming?” I asked.

He tilted his head, didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Sawyer might be more than a wolf, but he still couldn’t talk.

“I’ll meet you at the house.”

I made a move to get back into the car, and he let out a low
woof
, then pawed at the dirt and shook his whole body as if he’d just climbed out of an icy cold bath.

“Why don’t you shift back so we can talk?”

He lifted his upper lip and showed me his teeth.

“Oookay.” I stared at him for several seconds. “You didn’t get yourself cursed again, did you?”

Sawyer had been cursed by his mother, the Naye’i, or woman of smoke. For years, centuries, millennia—who knew?—he’d been unable to leave the Dinetah as a man. But since I’d torn her to shreds, the curse was broken.

I contemplated Saywer’s fuzzy ears and bushy tail. Unless it wasn’t.

I sighed. Sawyer obviously had no desire to return to his human form at the moment, and since making a wolf do anything, especially this wolf, was damn near impossible, I’d have to compromise.

“If you can’t beat ’em.” I opened the trunk of the rental, then pulled a silk robe from my duffel. “Join ’em.”

A gift from Sawyer, the robe had been fashioned in every shade of midnight—blue, purple, black with sparkles of silver—the image of a wolf flickered in the folds. Skinwalkers can shape-shift, but they need a little help. Sawyer, in human form, had tattoos everywhere. They depicted mammals and birds and insects—every single one a creature of prey. To shift, he touched a tattoo and became whatever lay beneath the stroke of his fingers. I could do the same. Touch him and become them.

However, sometimes, like now, touching Sawyer’s tattoos wasn’t an option, so I used the robe.

Quickly I lost my clothes. The jeweled collar around my neck had been bespelled, which allowed it to shift shape along with me. A good thing, since a vampire werewolf was something I really didn’t want to be.

I swirled the garment around my shoulders and embraced the familiar bright flash of light that heralded the change. A blast of cold, followed by heat, then the fall from two feet to four, the shift from human to wolf. It didn’t hurt, not really, but it freaked me out every single time.

Phoenix.

Sawyer’s deep, melodious voice echoed in my head—the telepathy that existed between shifters in their bestial forms.

What’s going on?
I asked.
The curse should be broken.

It is.

He circled closer, slid along my body, rubbed his face against mine, and I let him. While human, I didn’t trust him. He kept too many secrets, told too many lies. But in this form we were pack, joined in a way no one else could ever understand. Animals don’t lie. I’m not sure they’re capable of it.

If you can leave the Dinetah as a man, then why are you furry?

He whirled and took off across the deserted terrain. I hesitated, but only for an instant. In this form certain things called to me, and running was one of them.

True wolves can cover 125 miles in a day and run 40 miles per hour. Shifters are much faster, and skinwalkers can move so quickly they seem to disappear in one place, then appear in another. Part of the reason we excel in this area is that we love it. Running frees us.

I chased Sawyer until I caught him; then I jumped onto his back and we rolled onto the ground, tussling and snapping, nuzzling and nipping. But all too soon, he sidestepped and ran away again. Sawyer wasn’t much for play, unless it was sex play. The man was a sexual god.

Maybe that was hyperbole. But not by much. He’d had centuries to hone his skills. He could seduce anyone, was comfortable doing anything. Unfortunately, sex meant nothing to Sawyer but a means to whatever end he was after at the time. That didn’t make the sex any less spectacular. But the aftermath was a bitch.

I understood why he was the way he was. His mother had screwed him up. Didn’t they always? However, Sawyer’s mother had screwed him up by actually screwing him. The federation had helped to make Sawyer a head case to rival all head cases by using his talent as a catalyst telepath—he could free blocked supernatural abilities through sex. He’d certainly unblocked me.

That he’d drugged me and slept with me to do so was still a matter of contention between us, but since I’d discovered the truth about his mother, I was a little
less likely to plunge a knife into his back when he wasn’t looking. I still hadn’t forgiven him, but I kind of understood why he’d thought it was okay. His boundaries were as fucked up as he was.

We ran for miles. It felt so good just to be out in the fresh air, with the wind in my fur and nothing else to do but be.

Night hovered at the edge of the horizon. Mount Taylor loomed ahead, towering and beautiful. Full of mystery and magic. It was on that mountain that I’d become who I was right now. I still wasn’t sure how I felt about that.

There was destiny and this was mine. I hadn’t wanted it. Still didn’t. But we very rarely get what we want. We move on and we live or we die, but we deal.

Sawyer headed away from the mountain, across the scrabbly land. Just when I was about to ask where we were going and why, he paused, crouched and seemed to disappear from the earth.

I let out a surprised
woof
and his head popped up as if he’d been buried in the dirt.
Come
, his voice commanded me.

I followed more slowly and saw that the dry ground had crumbled away into a fairly deep hollow, one side open to the steadily descending night and the other trailing back into a twisting cave beneath a rock outcropping the shade of sand. Sawyer stood with his head inside the cave and his tail dappled by the shadows of the setting sun.

What do you smell?
he asked as I joined him.

I took a whiff. Something wild and gamey, not human but not completely inhuman, something that did not belong, yet something I recognized but could not quite put a name to.

I don’t know.

Not coyote, not wolf
, he mused.

No.
Those I’d smelled before.

He crawled in.

Hey! Not a good idea.

What if the animal that had been living in this place came back and found us there?

Sawyer didn’t respond, and he didn’t reappear. I stood outside for a few more seconds; then after a quick glance behind me, I went in too.

The place was a burrow, tight and warm and dry. It smelled of whatever had found it, a lot of them.

Maddening.
His thought came to me loud and clear along with the flavor of his emotions. In this form feelings were like auras, scents perhaps. Laughter smelled like syrup. Fury like fire. And right now, overlaying the smell of unknown beast, I caught a whiff like sweet-and-sour sauce. Confusion. Sawyer wasn’t sure what to make of this place and this intruder any more than I was.

Why don’t we go outside? Wait and watch for them to return and then we’ll know.

He lowered his head in agreement. I tried to turn and trot back toward the gray oval of the entrance and so did he. His chest bumped my rear end. My tail slid across his nose. We froze, tangled together, pressed close and unable to move without pressing even closer. Then his breath brushed over me, and I understood the meaning of “being in heat.”

Sawyer had lived as a wolf. He’d mated as one. He wanted to do so again, and he wanted to do so with me. I’d resisted. The idea made me squirrelly. Or at least it had until today. Today my beast was howling for release, my skin twitching beneath the fur, the scent of Sawyer, of me, of this place, making me consider lowering
my shoulders, lifting my rump, then allowing him to mount me from behind and—

He moved, and I bolted from the burrow, slamming into him so hard he in turn slammed into the wall and caused dirt to sift over us like rain.

Panicked, I reached for and became myself, the air going from hot to cold as the bright flash of magic that surrounded the shift faded. I stood in the moonlight naked and panting, my body still aroused, my mind churning like a storm-shrouded sea.

Another flash of light warred against the stars in the navy blue sky, and then Sawyer stood next to me. At least he had tattoos between him and the night.