Any Given Doomsday (The Phoenix Chronicles) Read online

  This close I could see his tattoos. They wound up his arms, down his back, across his chest. Nearly every inch of skin I could see and most likely every inch I could not had been etched with the likeness of an animal.

  My gaze shifted to his right bicep where there’d once been a howling black wolf. There still was—along with a mountain lion across his chest; a tarantula crept down his forearm, a hawk took flight from the small of his back. There were others too, all as predatory as the man whose skin they marked.

  Frowning, I lifted my gaze from the wolf tattoo to Sawyer’s face. He was watching me.

  Jimmy came up behind me, and I turned. I’m not sure what I meant to ask, but as I moved, Sawyer suddenly reached out, his long, strong fingers wrapping around my elbow. I gasped, both at the scalding heat of his skin and at the touch itself. I’d made certain I wasn’t close enough for him to grab. So how had he?

  The wind came up from nowhere, its whisper a single word. “Skinwalker.”

  Yanking my arm from Sawyer’s took no small amount of effort, but I did it. Unfortunately, I stumbled into Jimmy, got my too big shoes tangled with his, and fell hard on my ass.

  “Dammit,” I muttered. “Isn’t anyone human anymore?”

  Chapter 17

  Jimmy growled, an unearthly sound that made the skin on the back of my neck and all the way down my arms prickle, as he put himself between Sawyer and me. Sawyer just smiled a smile that made the gooseflesh intensify until I was shivering with it.

  “I’m okay. Stop. Shit.” I struggled to my feet, trying to shove myself between the two of them, who were circling and snarling like wild dogs. Jimmy shoved me back.

  “Hey!” My hands balled into fists. He didn’t even look at me.

  “Don’t touch her,” Jimmy said.

  Sawyer’s eyes flattened along with his mouth. “I’ll do whatever I have to. As she will.”

  Jimmy took a swing. Sawyer ducked it easily. I threw up my hands and got out of the way. I’d lived among men like this all my life.

  Well, maybe not men exactly like this, since I’d lived among actual men, but the principle was similar. Street kids. System boys. Cops. Tough guys were all the same. Once they decided to beat the shit out of one another, you might as well grab a cup of coffee and watch because you weren’t going to stop them.

  The battle was like none I’d ever seen—probably because it was a battle and not just a fight. Sawyer and Jimmy had powers beyond the realm of mere mortals. As Jimmy had said, superior speed and strength were his. Sawyer’s speed and strength—though lesser than Jimmy’s—weren’t too shabby either.

  When one man landed a blow, the other flew several feet. They flitted around the yard, here, there, onto the roof of the house and then tumbling off, landing hard, getting up and slamming at each other again.

  “This isn’t getting anywhere,” I shouted.

  Jimmy glanced my way. Blood trickled from a cut in his lip, though not as freely as it would have on a human.

  Sawyer took advantage of his distraction and his fist shot out, headed for Jimmy’s chin, but Jimmy saw it coming and dropped to the ground, rolling quickly out of Sawyer’s reach.

  “I’m not the kid I once was,” Jimmy said. “You can’t take me anymore, old man. Those days are done.”

  Old man?

  Sawyer appeared to be thirty, but then he always had. Good genes? Or perhaps no genes? I had no idea what constituted a skinwalker. Was he Nephilim, breed, or something else entirely? Ruthie’s whisper had been vague.

  Sawyer’s face shimmered. I saw wolf-man-wolf, as if a battle were being raged beneath the skin, behind those freakishly light eyes. Then he was man again, and he stayed that way. For now.

  He turned away, dismissing Jimmy like a servant. Jimmy rolled onto his feet and sprang. Right before he would have plowed into Sawyer’s back, the other man ducked and Jimmy sailed over gracefully, landing in front of me as if he’d just completed a violent game of leapfrog.

  “That’s enough,” I said softly, firmly.

  Jimmy glanced over his shoulder. I didn’t think he was going to listen, but he slowly lowered his head, breathing in a measured pace—in through the nose, out through the mouth, calming himself.

  Sawyer walked toward me, and I had to force myself not to back up as he came near.

  “That was you on the road,” I said. “The wolf.”

  He lifted his brows but didn’t answer.

  I turned to Jimmy. “Right?”

  He straightened; dust sprinkled off his clothes, swirling through the garish beams of the Hummer’s headlights. “Why do you think I tried to hit him?”

  I contemplated Sawyer, who’d stopped several feet away from us and stood watching with an eerie stillness that had always given me the willies.

  “You brought me here to be trained,” I continued, “so why would you try and kill him before that happened?”

  “He wouldn’t have died. He’s a damn skinwalker.”

  “You two obviously know each other a lot better than I thought.”

  “He trains some of us.” Jimmy’s lip curled. “For a price.”

  “You think I should do it for free?” Sawyer asked.

  “You’re a breed, just like me.”

  “No.” Sawyer walked toward his house. “I’m not anything like you.”

  He disappeared inside.

  Jimmy joined me and together we contemplated the open doorway.

  “What is he?” I asked.

  “You know.”

  “Skinwalker doesn’t mean jack to me. You say he’s a breed. He says he isn’t.”

  “He is.” Jimmy tilted his head. “Maybe.”

  I smacked myself in the forehead. “Maybe?”

  “He’s not Nephilim.”

  “Because?”

  “They’re evil.”

  “He’s not exactly what I’d call a good guy.”

  “No.” Jimmy sighed. “He’s different. He’s right about that. But he is like me. Kind of.”

  “Dammit, Jimmy, you’re giving me a headache.” I rubbed my forehead where I’d just smacked it. Maybe I was giving myself one. “Why don’t you start by telling me just what in hell skinwalker means?”

  Instead of answering, Jimmy went to the Hummer. I glanced at the open door, then at Jimmy. It wasn’t much of a choice; I followed. If he thought he was jumping in the car and taking off without me, he’d find out differently when I landed on the hood.

  But all he did was reach in and switch off the engine, withdraw the keys and shove them into the pocket of his borrowed jeans.

  Seconds later the headlights went off with a tinny thunk and shadows descended over us both. Sawyer’s house remained dark and silent. Was he even inside?

  “A skinwalker is a Navajo—” He stopped abruptly and I moved closer, trying to see the expression on his face. The moon had just sprung over the horizon, spreading a milky glow across the earth. I wasn’t certain, but I thought he looked confused.

  “A Navajo what?” I prompted.

  “Witch.”

  “Sawyer’s a witch.” I had a sudden flash of him buzzing by on his broomstick, and I choked on a laugh. “Right.”

  Jimmy cast me a disgusted glance. “He’s a medicine man. That you knew. You had to.”

  “Yes.” I managed to control my mirth. Now wasn’t the time. I wasn’t sure there would ever be a time for laughter again.

  “In Navajo tradition certain medicine men are yee naaldlooshii, those who walk about with it.”

  “Walk about with what?”

  “The skin of an animal.”

  I considered his words, which had two meanings. Those who walked about in the skin of an animal—as in wearing one atop their own. Many Native American tribes had costumes made from animals, headdresses that were the actual heads of beasts.

  The other option, and the one I believed we were talking about, was for human skin to transform into the skin of an animal.

  “Shape-shifter.” I shrugged.
“Obviously, after what we saw in Hardeyville, that doesn’t make him all that special.”

  Jimmy’s smile was rueful. “As much as I hate to admit it, he is. Skinwalkers transform through magic. They wear a robe fashioned with the likeness of their spirit animal. They perform a ceremony beneath the moon and—” He spread his hands.

  “They become the animals they want to be.”

  “No.”

  “But you just said—”

  “I said animal. Singular. One per person and one only. Their totem or spirit animal.”

  “But not Sawyer.”

  “His power comes from within. The magic is in his blood, from his Nephilim mother. His skin is his robe.”

  I thought of all the animals tattooed on Sawyer’s flesh. Jimmy was saying Sawyer could become every one of them. That actually explained quite a bit.

  When I’d stayed here that summer, there’d been nights I came awake to the calls of animals that could not walk these hills. Usually, when I went to my window, nothing was there.

  Usually.

  I’d ended up doubting my sanity more often than not. At fifteen, that isn’t a good doubt to have.

  Jimmy lowered his voice, as if he feared the wind could eavesdrop and carry his words to far-off, listening ears. “They say his mother was a Dreadful One and his father a medicine man who followed the Blessing Way and helped his people.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The Dreadful Ones are monsters.” He spread his hands. “I’m not exactly sure what kind.”

  And I doubt anyone had ever had the balls to ask Sawyer. I certainly didn’t.

  “The Blessing Way is the basis of the Navajo religion. Chants and songs that keep life on an even keel.”

  “So Sawyer’s father was a holy man?”

  “Yes. Which no doubt made his corruption all the more fun for her. Medicine men who dabble in black magic are considered witches, brujas. They’re renegades, and they’re hunted down by the Navajo and executed.”

  “Still?”

  “There are always stories.”

  “And him?” I jerked my head toward the house.

  “He’s too powerful to kill. Many have tried, none have succeeded.”

  “Is that why he lives way out here?” I asked.

  Jimmy shrugged. “Maybe. He’s an outcast from his people. Always has been.”

  “So Sawyer’s father was a medicine man, one of the good guys, yet he slept with a Nephilim?”

  “He didn’t mean to. She took the shape of his wife. Night after night she seduced him until she became pregnant and then—” He glanced at the house again, then back. “She killed him.”

  I winced. “Black widow much?”

  “I can see why he is how he is. He probably can’t help himself. The Navajo are matriarchal. Inheritance passed through the mother’s side. They believe, and I’m inclined to agree, that the mother’s blood is stronger, but—”

  “But what?” I asked when he remained silent.

  “Yes,” said Sawyer. “But what?”

  I nearly jumped out of my skin. Jimmy and I both spun toward the sound. I don’t know if I expected to see Sawyer or not. One part of me thought that maybe he could hear us from afar with his super-duper batlike hearing; or perhaps he was actually a bat, swooping down low and eavesdropping, then speaking in his human voice. Though I hadn’t observed a bat tattooed anywhere the eye could see, that didn’t mean he couldn’t have one engraved on his ass.

  But there was nothing supernatural about his presence. Except that he stood right behind us, and neither one of us had seen or heard him approach.

  “How do you do that?”

  I reached out to shove him back. He was too close. Then I remembered how his skin had been so hot, scalding almost, downright unnerving to touch, and I didn’t want to touch him again.

  I let my hand fall to my side, rubbing it surreptitiously on my jeans, my palm itching, stinging despite never going near him at all.

  “Do what?” he asked mildly.

  When I’d been here the last time, the first time, he’d often appeared where 1 didn’t expect him, scared the hell out of me every time. Then I’d put it down to his being silent as a stalking tiger.

  My gaze went to the tiger carved on his thigh. Hell. Maybe he had been.

  “Skinwalkers can move faster than the eye can track,” Jimmy answered when Sawyer did not. “In their animal forms they appear and disappear like magic when it’s merely speed.”

  I remembered seeing the wolf on the road, then in a blink it had been gone.

  “Wouldn’t you consider that kind of speed a certain type of magic?” Sawyer murmured.

  Chapter 18

  Into the silence that followed Sawyer’s question, the trill of my cell phone sounded horrifically loud. I jumped, my heart jerking so hard my chest ached, then fumbled the thing from my pocket, nearly dropping it before I managed to check the caller ID.

  Murphy’s. I had to answer.

  “Did you get the autopsy report?” I asked.

  “Well, hello to you too.”

  “Sorry. Hello. Did you?”

  “Where in hell are you, Liz?” Megan lowered her voice to a near whisper. “The cops are flipping out.”

  “I’m not a suspect. They didn’t tell me I couldn’t leave town.”

  “Why would you? Now of all times.”

  “I can’t tell you that, Meg.”

  “Fine,” she said, then paused a few beats as if she didn’t want to tell me what she’d heard. Or maybe she just didn’t know how.

  I turned away from Sawyer and Jimmy. I couldn’t concentrate with them in sight. If they wanted to kill each other while I dealt with my phone call, they could go right ahead.

  “Let me make this easier for you,” I said. “They found traces of animal fur.”

  “How did you—” She stopped. Megan understood better than most that I knew things I should not, and there was no explaining just how.

  “The homicide twins told me the cause of death was a knife wound,” I continued.

  “Not.”

  My shoulders relaxed. I hadn’t really believed that Jimmy might have been responsible, but a different cause of death certainly helped his case with the cops.

  “Wounds, yes,” Meg continued. “Torn, jagged, vicious, but not from a knife.”

  I knew what they’d been from—tooth and claw—but I waited for her to say so.

  “The wounds were consistent with an animal attack, but the actual cause of death was blood loss.”

  I winced. “Too many wounds.”

  Her hesitation had my neck prickling. “Meg?”

  “The ME said the blood loss wasn’t consistent with the number and depth of the wounds. She thought they—”

  The unpleasant sensation had left my neck, traveling all over my body. “She thought they what?”

  “Drank her blood.”

  I dropped the cell phone.

  Someone handed it to me. I stared at the thing and wasn’t sure what to do with it.

  “Lizzy?” My eyes met Jimmy’s. “Finish this.”

  Slowly I reached out, took the phone, and turned away again. “What does that mean?”

  “You tell me. The ME believes Ruthie was attacked by animals, yet the police report says there was nothing but ashes and you at the site.”

  “I didn’t do it.”

  Her voice gentled. “I never thought you did, even before the revelation of the bizarre forensic evidence. But you know something.”

  “I can’t—”

  She sighed. “Tell me. Right. Why did I even ask?”

  “Sorry.”

  “When will you be back?”

  “I’m not sure.” I still wasn’t sure I’d be back, and I was saddened. Ruthie was gone, but Meg was there. She was the only one I had left now. I faced the two men.

  Except for them.

  “Take as long as you need, Liz. Your job will be waiting for you.”

  “Thank
s. For everything.”

  Megan hesitated, as if she might say good-bye, but then she didn’t. “You need to stop blaming yourself.”

  She’d told me this before. I still wasn’t able to follow her advice.

  “Max trusted you.”

  “One time too many.”

  “He told me everything, Liz. About your hunches. About how you could touch stuff and know where people were. You saved lives over and over. You saved him.”

  “Not enough.”

  “When is it ever enough? I don’t blame you. He wouldn’t blame you. You need to stop blaming yourself. You have a gift and you should be using it.”

  “I am,” I whispered.

  “Good. You’ve been drifting since Max died. You lost your purpose and that’s no way to live.”

  Silence fell between us. I wasn’t sure what to say. I’d known that Megan didn’t blame me for Max’s death. I’d thought she was delusional. I’d hung around waiting for her to lash out, to give me the beating—mental, physical, didn’t matter—that I deserved, but she never had.

  “I’ll be in touch,” I said, and disconnected.

  I did feel, for the first time in a long time, that I was moving forward instead of standing still. Though I’d been repeatedly tested and terrified, I’d also been exhilarated. I felt alive again, thanks to the constant threat of violent and bloody death.

  “How much of that did you get?” I asked.

  “All of it,” Jimmy said. At my lifted brows, he glanced at Sawyer, then shrugged. “We can both hear pretty well.”

  “Swell.”

  Jimmy cast Sawyer a glare. “What do you know about Ruthie’s death?” he demanded.

  “Me?” Sawyer put his hand to his bare chest with an exaggerated show of surprise. “I was here.”

  “So you say, but we all know you lie. You can move faster than light. Who’s to say you weren’t there, and a few hours later right here again. You wouldn’t even need a damn plane.”

  I frowned. “You can transform into animals.”

  Slowly Sawyer lowered his hand, trailing his fingers along his sternum, his rib cage, his belly. The stark lines of the tattoos seemed to undulate in the half-light from the windows. For an instant it seemed that the animals traced into his skin were dancing.