Doomsday Can Wait (31 page)

I whipped my head in that direction to discover that the sweet, stone cottage had morphed into a gray stone prison, complete with an eight-foot concrete wall topped by barbed wire.

"She knows we're here," I said.

Turrets graced the corners of the walls, manned by—

I squinted at the great, hulking figures. Some had bodies like men, heads like animals. Others were part bull, part lion, part falcon perhaps, with large wings sweeping from their shoulders.

"Are those gargoyles?" Sawyer nodded. "I thought they were statues on buildings."

"Most gargoyles can turn to stone to avoid detection, then turn back into a chimera at will."

"What's a chimera?"

"Two animals as one."

"So all the gargoyles on all the buildings all over the world can come to life?"

Sawyer spread his hands. Who knew?

"Are they Nephilim?" He shook his head. "Breeds?"

"No. The gargoyles were animals that aided the fair-ies when they first fell to the earth. The fairies were lost. They had no idea how to survive here. They were suddenly humanoid. They needed to eat, sleep, protect themselves from the elements, and they didn't know how."

"The Grigori had their human lovers to help them," I reasoned.

"The Grigori were cast into Tartarus so fast they didn't have time to panic."

"I'll take your word for it," I said. "So certain animals helped the fairies, and in return .. . ?"

"They were given humanity."

"That's human?" I muttered. The heavenly rewards around here were kind of iffy.

"They have the intelligence of humans, with the assets of their beast, combined with the gifts of flight and shape-shifting. They're more than human," Sawyer said. "Once the fairies settled in, once they could manage on their own, the gargoyles were charged with protecting the weak and unwary from demon attack. The more humans they save, the more human they become."

I glanced up at the turrets. I guess that explained the human and animal combos.

"What are they doing here?" I asked.

Sawyer contemplated the towers as the gargoyles, standing as still as stone, contemplated us. The only thing that made them seem real were the colors of their flesh, their hair, their fur or wings, and the slight rise and fall of their chests. Their flat black eyes reminded me of the statues they could become and made me wonder if they were capable of showing any mercy at all.

"Summer must have enlisted them for protection," Sawyer said. "The gargoyles and the fairies are still very close."

We'd stopped halfway down the cobblestone walk, which was now just cement, as gray and hard as the walls of the prison. As we began to move forward, the air filled with the slow, methodic beat of giant wings.

My gaze flicked upward. The gargoyles had taken to the air.

I cursed. Sawyer kept walking.

"Hey." I scurried after. "They're going to protect this place from demon attack."

He lifted a hand, making his "stopping traffic, cross-ing guard" gesture, and the prison wall imploded.

"I'm not a demon," Sawyer said, and walked inside.

CHAPTER 30

Sawyer had put a pretty huge hole in the gray stone wall. Summer was going to be pissed.

I glanced at the gargoyles. They continued to hover in the sky above as if waiting for an order. Attack or retreat?

Maybe they couldn't attack if we weren't demons. Maybe they couldn't decide what we were. Hell, I still had doubts of my own.

I stepped through the jagged hole, my shoes crunching on busted concrete. Dust sparkled in the glare of sunlight through the un-door. I frowned at that sunshine. The angle was off.

Quickly I glanced back. The stone walkway seemed to stretch for miles. The Hummer sitting at the curb looked the size of a Pekingese. The sun had fallen a lot farther than it should have for the amount of time I thought we'd been gone.

"How long have we been walking?" I asked.

Sawyer, who'd been staring up a stone staircase that disappeared into a dark and shadowy second floor, turned, then shrugged. "Does it matter?"

I felt adrift, confused, and out of my element, which was probably what Summer was after. "Is she messing with time and space?"

"What do you think?" He gestured at the stairway that should not exist in a tiny, one-room Irish cottage.

"Why?"

"Because she can, but she should save her magic for someone who cares. It isn't going to make us run screaming."

"You'll never find him." As Summer's voice echoed through the shadowy darkness of the second floor, the prison seemed to swell, becoming taller and wider. "I won't let you."

There were now at least four floors above us; half a dozen halls led away from the gaping entry. Doors upon doors, hundreds, perhaps thousands, appeared.

"I won't leave," I said quietly, knowing she could hear me. "You can't make me."

Summer appeared on the fourth-floor landing. "Watch me," she said, and jumped.

I flinched before I remembered that she could fly. She floated gently downward, landing in front of me. Wearing her usual tight jeans, boots, and halter top, she'd left her cowboy hat upstairs. Her golden hair sparkled angel-like though her eyes sparked with near-demonic fury.

"Summer, listen—" I began.

She hit me in the face with a fistful of fairy dust. I choked.

"Go away," she said. "Never come here again."

I turned and headed for the door.

"Phoenix," Sawyer murmured, but I didn't care. I had to leave. Now. I would never return. Why had I ever come in the first place?

"Where's Sanducci?" Sawyer demanded.

"Who's Sanducci?" I muttered.

Summer laughed as I stepped out of the gaping hole in the wall and into the orange light of the setting sun. The gargoyles circled, bizarre silhouettes in the sky. The Hummer no longer appeared the size of a Pekingese. It wasn't very far away at all. I'd be there in seconds. Luther and I would go home. I really, really wanted to go home.

However, I'd only taken a few steps when she cried out, and the compulsion to leave drained from me as quickly as a hard rain down a steep gully.

I went inside. Summer and Sawyer faced each other. From her outcry, I figured he'd done something violent, but there wasn't a scratch on her, just a four-leaf clover stuck in her hair.

"Why does your magic suddenly work on me?" I asked.

Summer gave me an evil glare. "You are
not
on an errand of mercy."

My eyes widened. "Saving the world isn't merciful?"

"You'll hurt him," she said. "Permanently."

"How do you know what I'm up to?" I hadn't talked to her since before we'd found Xander Whitelaw.

She tapped her head. Shorthand for
psychic flash.

"Summer, I don't have any choice."

"Go screw a demon. Leave Jimmy alone."

"It's too dangerous," Sawyer said. "As much as I hate to admit it, Sanducci is the best course for her."

"He's in agony over what he is. Forcing him to make her that way, too—" Her eyes met mine. "It'll destroy him."

She was probably right.

"Quit punishing him for something that wasn't his fault."

"This isn't about punishing—" I began, then stopped. "What isn't his fault?"

"Him and me." She looked at her feet. "That was Ruthie."

"I know." Her chin jerked up, and I tapped my own head. "I saw."

"Then how can you—"

"I have to!" I shouted. "Jimmy will understand."

"You wish," Summer said at the same time Sawyer murmured, "I doubt that."

I opened my mouth, then shut it again. Regardless of whether he understood or he didn't, I was still going to do this.

"Where is he?" I asked.

Summer stuck out her tongue.

"Oh, that's mature."

She gave me the finger. Even better.

I glanced at Sawyer. "Can you do something?"

"I've exhausted the magical options," he said. "Saint-John's-wort allowed us to see this place." He held up a hand before I could speak. "And I used all I had to get that far."

So he couldn't make the cavernous gray prison revert to whatever it really was.

"What's up with that?" I lifted my chin to indicate the tiny green plant still stuck in Summer's hair.

"A four-leaf clover blocks her influence."

"She can't sway anyone with her 'make me' dust while she's wearing that?"

"Exactly."

"She can't just yank it out?"

Sawyer gave me a withering glare. "Please," he murmured.

As if to illustrate, Summer swiped at the clover, then hissed in pain as if the thing were embedded in her skull along with her hair.

"I have to remove it," Sawyer said. He lifted a brow at Summer. "So you'd better be nice."

She gave him the finger, too. She'd really been hanging out with me way too much.

"If you're blocking her influence, why is this place such a maze?" I lifted my gaze. The prison had continued to grow—hall upon hall, stairway beyond stairway.

"We're talking two different things—innate magic and spells. Clover, for one—" He swept his hand out, empty palm up.

"Saint-John's-wort, which you're out of, for the other." Sawyer nodded. "Why are you carrying these things in the first place?"

"There are a lot of fairies, Phoenix, and I'm rarely merciful."

I glanced at Summer, who was too busy trying to pick the clover out of her hair to comment. She was going to snatch herself bald if she didn't knock it off.

"Where do you stock up on antifairy meds?"

"Wal-Mart," he said simply.

"I can understand the Saint-John's-wort"—it was an herb used for a lot of ailments—"but the four-leaf clover? I doubt they carry them."

"The benandanti did," he said simply.

That made Summer pause. "The benandanti is dead."

"What was that?" Sawyer's voice betrayed no emotion beyond mild curiosity.

"She went to the underworld to fight the Grigori. And she lost."

"So they're free?" I asked.

"Not yet. I assume there are more steps involved."

I glanced at Sawyer.

"I don't know what they are," he said.

That hadn't been why I was looking at him. I thought maybe he'd be upset, at least a little, that a woman he'd recently slept with was dead. The way Sawyer was behaving, you'd never even know they'd met.

I thought of Carla as I'd seen her last—young and strong again thanks to Sawyer. Nevertheless she'd lost the fight and we'd moved one step closer to Armageddon's Apocalypse.

"I need to see Jimmy," I blurted.

"Good luck with that." Summer indicated the still-multiplying cool gray corridors and the ever-increasing stairway to heaven.

I grabbed her by the arms, planning to shake her until the truth rattled out along with her teeth, but as soon as I touched her, I saw the path that led to the single cell-like room that housed Jimmy.

Touch something he did.
Worked nearly every time.

I ran down the nearest hall. Summer followed, keeping up admirably well considering my dhampir speed. But then she could fly, and did, hovering above me, chattering like a damned squirrel as she continued to try and convince me that I shouldn't do this.

"He's better," she said. "He won't do what you want."

I didn't point out that if that were true, he wouldn't be locked up, and she wouldn't be working so hard to keep me from finding him.

I reached the golden door—how obvious was that?— and Summer's feet touched the floor just as Sawyer caught up.

No doorknob, no latch, no way to open the thing that I could see. I glanced at Summer, who lifted a brow and crossed her arms over her chest. She wasn't going to open it, and I couldn't make her.

I studied what appeared to be a solid-gold structure, as thick as any bank vault. Obviously she'd bespelled the thing somehow. I placed my palm on Summer's head, hoping for a clue, but she was ready for me this time, and all I got was a blast of her and Jimmy rolling in the sheets.

I snatched my hand back as she smirked. I was pretty certain that had been recent.

"Those who peek into heads uninvited deserve whatever they see," she said. "You told me to do anything."

I hadn't told her to do him, but—I shrugged. Whatever worked. I couldn't throw stones at that glass house.

I returned my attention to the door, knocked and called, "Jimmy?"

My answer was a snarl that wasn't even close to human, then something slammed into the other side so hard the entire building shuddered.

I lifted my gaze to Summer's. "You call that better?"

"I did a spell," she admitted. "It subverts the vampire."

I tilted my head, remembering the term from my dream walk. "Subverts how?"

"Channels the demon." Summer lifted her hands, pressing them together as if making a snowball. "He fights and fights—"

"Which means the demon gets stronger and stronger because he won't let it free," Sawyer said. "It's like damming up a creek. The water's got to go somewhere."

"So it overflows the banks," I murmured, "or bursts past the dam."

"When's he set to explode?" Sawyer asked.

In answer, Jimmy snarled again, and this time, when he hit the door, the outline of a fist expanded outward.

"I'd say right about now," I murmured.

Sawyer frowned. "Maybe you should wait before going inside."

"Not."

"Tomorrow
would
be better," Summer agreed.

If she wanted me to wait, I knew I
had
to get in there. "What happens tomorrow?"

Sawyer stared at Summer, his expression considering,
"Plenus luna malum,"
he murmured, and her eyes narrowed as her fingers clenched. She really wanted to zap him and couldn't. \

"Something Latin about the moon," I guessed.

"Translates to 'full moon evil,'" Sawyer explained. "She channeled his vampire tendencies into the night of the full moon. Every other night, he's normal. Or as normal as Sanducci gets. But when the moon is whole, he goes—"

Jimmy slammed into the door again.

"Batshit," I muttered. "I take it the full moon's tonight."