Any Given Doomsday Page 13

  I’d seen a hundred examples just like that, both on the job and off it. Terminal cancer disappearing without a trace. Perfectly healthy thirty-year-olds dropping dead on the street. Was the universe that random? I’d had to say no, even before I’d seen this place.

  “How do you know it was their time?” I asked. “How do you know that it wasn’t my fault, that I wasn’t good enough?”

  “They were dead before I showed you the location. They were already dead when it was shown to me. How could you have done anything more than what you did?”

  Some of my sadness eased, though not all. I couldn’t look at this playground full of children gone to heaven too soon and not feel guilty for every birthday I’d ever had.

  “You did what you were supposed to do,” Ruthie continued. “You killed the Nephilim in Hardeyville. You saved the next town on their list, the next person who might have innocently crossed their path.”

  There was that.

  “Jimmy had—” I paused, uncertain if I should tell her about the momentary meltdown. What happened to DKs who lost their edge? Were they sent into a town very much like Hardeyville without any silver bullets?

  “I know,” Ruthie murmured.

  Of course she did.

  “He seems all right now.” Except for his annoying tendency to poke Sawyer with the proverbial stick.

  “He is.”

  “Does he do that a lot?”

  “Never.”

  “Never?” I frowned. “Well, I guess it was pretty bad. All those kids. The—” I glanced at the carriage.

  Ruthie’s salt-and-pepper eyebrows lifted toward her salt-and-pepper hair. “You think what he saw in Hardeyville sent Jimmy over?” She made a tsking sound.

  “Lizbeth, he’s seen worse than that a hundred and one times before.”

  “Worse?” I echoed. I did not ever want to see worse.

  “Jimmy’s been doing this since he was eighteen, but he’s been doing it alone.”

  “Then you’d think—” I stopped. You’d think it would have been easier for him with a partner, but then again—

  “He’s never had to see the carnage through your eyes, never had to live with the possibility of losing you to one of them.”

  “He lost me a long time ago.” Or maybe lost wasn’t the right word. He’d thrown me away. “Why would he care?”

  “You don’t think it would kill him to watch you die? Wouldn’t it kill you to watch him?”

  Considering I’d imagined his painful and torturous death many times, I decided not to answer that. In truth, the idea of Jimmy dying before my eyes did make me a little uneasy.

  “Springboard tried to shoot me,” I pointed out. “Jimmy didn’t start gibbering then.”

  “That was unexpected. He only had time to react, as did you. Hardeyville was different.”

  “That’s for sure.”

  “Jimmy always knew you’d become a seer. It was your destiny, just as it was his to become a DK. But seers are protected. They don’t walk the front lines. Until you.”

  “Desperate times,” I murmured.

  “Desperate measures,” she agreed.

  I wasn’t sure what to think about this information. If I believed Ruthie, and why wouldn’t I, that meant Jimmy still had feelings for me. I’d learned to live with the knowledge that we were over, that he didn’t love me, had probably never loved me. But what did I do with the concept that he cared at least enough to worry I might die by werewolf?

  I shook my head. I couldn’t deal with this now. There were too many other pressing issues.

  “Sawyer says seers and DKs are dying.”

  Ruthie’s face went stark. “I know.”

  “Is there anyone else who has the list of federation members?”

  “There isn’t a list. It was all up here.” She tapped her head. “They would have come to you one by one when it was safe, sent by the voice that guides them to swear allegiance, letting you touch them and gauge their strengths, their weaknesses, their loyalty.”

  “If there isn’t a list and you’re dead, then how—”

  “Whoever’s controlling the Nephilim has powers well beyond mine. I’ve tried to see who it is, or how our secrets are being discovered, but I can’t.”

  I wanted to curse, but my mouth still stung from when she’d smacked me the last time.

  “Why am I here?” I asked. “Is there another town that needs saving?” Although after Hardeyville, saving probably wasn’t the right word.

  “I’m sure there is, but you won’t be going.”

  “I can.” My voice was too eager. “No problem. You need me, I’m there.”

  Her lips curved. “Nice try. You’re in New Mexico to learn how to hear me without touching them.”

  “Can he teach me?”

  “Yes.” Ruthie looked away, her eyes troubled. “But you aren’t going to like it.”

  Chapter 20

  I woke with a gasp, as if breaking past the surface of the water after a dangerously long dip. I sat up, heart pounding, I wasn’t sure why, until I saw the long tall shadow of a man in the doorway.

  At first I didn’t know who it was. Jimmy? Sawyer? Someone I hadn’t met yet? Then I caught the drift of smoke, saw the tiny pinprick of red at the end of a cigarette.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “Does it have to be something? Can’t I walk through my own house in the middle of the night?”

  I suppose he could, but if he was watching me sleep, that was kind of creepy. Of course he’d always been kind of creepy. I didn’t think he could help himself.

  There’d been so many times at the age of fifteen when I’d wanted to leave this place, that man; I’d been desperate to run away and never come back. But running off into the desert was a death sentence. I’d often felt like staying here was one too. But I’d made it out alive.

  Last time.

  There’d been occasions I’d woken in the darkest part of the night and felt his presence, as if he were sitting at the foot of my bed. My skin would tingle, perhaps I should say crawl, as if he’d touched me when I was unaware. But always, when I turned on the light, he wasn’t there.

  The feeling of being watched, sometimes followed, had continued even after I’d escaped. In truth, I still felt him sometimes in the darkness, would catch the lingering scent of cigarette smoke or hear his voice in the whisper of the wind.

  “Come here.” Sawyer didn’t wait for me to get out of bed; he just turned and walked away.

  I didn’t want to go anywhere with him. But I also wanted this to be over as quickly as possible. According to both Ruthie and Jimmy, the only way to do that was to listen to the man.

  “Hell,” I muttered, and swung my bare legs over the edge of the bed.

  When I’d packed clothes in Hardeyville, I hadn’t packed any pajamas. The dead woman had only owned sexy lingerie, and I wasn’t in the mood. So I was sleeping in a T-shirt.

  I found a pair of shorts in the duffel and slipped them over my legs before I left the deceptive safety of the bedroom and trailed after the shadow that was Sawyer.

  I didn’t have far to go. He paused at the next bedroom, the one where I’d assumed Jimmy lay. The door was open. The bed was empty.

  Sawyer quirked a brow in my direction. My gaze went to the front door, and I ran.

  He was climbing into the Hummer. He was leaving me.

  Again.

  “Jimmy?”

  He froze, one leg in the vehicle, one leg out. For an instant I thought he meant to keep going. What would I have done if he had? Run after him? Pounded on the window? Begged him not to go?

  In hell.

  But he stopped, sighed, turned. “You weren’t supposed to wake up.”

  I glanced into the house. Sawyer still stood in the hall. The cigarette was gone. I couldn’t see his face. Right now I didn’t want to.

  I shut the door and crossed the dry, harsh grass of the lawn, ignoring the pain against the soles of my bare feet.

 
; “Where are you going?”

  “I told you I’d question every one of Ruthie’s DKs and find out who betrayed her.”

  “You have to do that now?”

  “Why not? You’ll be busy.”

  There was something in his voice I didn’t like, but I wasn’t sure what it meant. “Stay.”

  “No.”

  “Just like that? What if—” I paused. I’d been going to say, “what if I need you to?” but I still had enough pride to keep that to myself.

  “This has to be done, Lizzy, and I’m the one who has to do it.”

  “I thought I was supposed to meet all my DKs. I could go with you—”

  “No.”

  He said that a lot. I liked it less every time.

  “But—”

  “You have to stay here. With him. You have to learn what he knows, become what you were meant to be. And I have to go and do what I know how to do, because I’m already exactly what I’ve always been meant to be.”

  “Which is?”

  “A killer.”

  I flinched. “You aren’t—”

  “Don’t lie. Not to me and not to yourself. The whole white-picket-fence dream you built around the two of us, that wasn’t ever going to be, even without the Nephilim.”

  White picket fence. How did he know? I hadn’t even realized how appealing they were until one had shown up in Ruthie’s heaven.

  But then he’d always understood me so well. Which was why it hurt so much when he betrayed me. He’d known exactly how to do it so the pain was almost, but not quite, unbearable.

  I could have borne dealing with Sawyer as long as Jimmy was with me. Now what was I going to do?

  Whatever you have to, Lizbeth.

  Was that actually Ruthie, or just my own thoughts speaking in her voice? Didn’t matter. The voice was right. I’d do whatever I had to do. I’d lived without San-ducci before, and I could do it again.

  “When will you be back?”

  His quick glance revealed the truth. He wasn’t coming back.

  “I’m your seer,” I said. “How am I supposed to give you your assignments?”

  Providing I managed to receive them without getting myself killed in the process.

  “Same way as Ruthie did.” He lifted his hand, thumb to his ear, pinky to his mouth. Sign of the cell phone.

  1 looked at the ground. My feet were dirty. I shouldn’t have run outside without shoes.

  Why was I thinking such mundane thoughts at a time like this? To avoid thinking the nonmundane ones.

  Jimmy’s shoes appeared in my vision, then his hand, holding a business card. Talk about mundane. What would it say? got a problem? call i-8oo-kil-lers.

  I accepted it without glancing up. I tried to brush my fingers against his, who knew what I’d see, but he was too quick, too smart, and he was gone before I could manage it, moving toward the Hummer with a long, sure stride.

  He opened the door and paused. “Don’t forget about the chindi.”

  “What about it?” The thing was dead. Wasn’t it?

  “You can never trust him. Never.”

  Yet he was leaving me here. Alone. With him.

  As if he’d read my mind, Jimmy continued, “I don’t think he’ll hurt you. You wore the turquoise. You were protected from it.”

  I fingered the necklace Sawyer had given me, which lay beneath the black T-shirt.

  “Learn what you have to and get gone.” He glanced over his shoulder and our eyes met. “Promise?”

  I was tempted to tell him he had no business asking anything of me, but I couldn’t. Because what he was asking was what I wanted too. So I kept my mouth shut and nodded.

  Jimmy got into the car and drove away.

  I stood in the yard and watched the headlights get smaller and smaller, then disappear altogether. The night was cool. I rubbed my arms, stomped my feet. I’m not sure what I was waiting for. Sawyer wasn’t going away.

  I turned, and he spoke from the open doorway of his hogan. “You’ll never be number one with him.”

  I didn’t bother to wonder how he’d gotten from the house to the hogan without a sound. I just went inside and crawled back into bed, where I lay in the darkness, stared at the ceiling, and knew that Sawyer was right.

  Morning came far too soon. When didn’t it?

  I awoke to bright desert sunshine and the scent of coffee. Thank God Sawyer wasn’t one of those annoying health nuts who refused to have a coffee pot in their house. Considering his love affair with nicotine, good health didn’t appear to be on his top ten list of concerns. I suspected eternal life, or something near enough, was the reason.

  The pot was half full; Sawyer wasn’t in the house. I found myself reluctantly charmed that he’d made coffee for me. He couldn’t be all bad if he did that.

  Then again, lack of electricity in his hogan could be the cause. If he wanted coffee he’d have to make it here. There was nothing charming about it.

  I showered quickly and got dressed in the dead woman’s clothes. That was really starting to bother me. You’d think after a few days they’d start to feel like mine, but it wasn’t happening.

  I poured a second cup of coffee, having downed the first one like water before I’d stepped into the shower, and headed outside. Sawyer crouched in the yard, cooking bacon and eggs over an open fire.

  “Got anything against a stove?” I asked.

  “Doesn’t taste the same.”

  “You like hickory-smoked eggs?”

  He didn’t answer.

  I looked around for a lawn chair. No such luck. So I shifted awkwardly, waiting for him to finish or speak. After several minutes, I couldn’t stand the silence.

  “I need to go to the store for some clothes, better shoes.”

  Though the reservation was desolate in certain areas, like this one, it wasn’t without its share of retail establishments.

  “No,” he said.

  What was it with that word lately? Everyone seemed to be enthralled with it but me.

  “I had to borrow—” Or was it steal?

  “We don’t have time.” Sawyer slid half the bacon and two eggs onto a plate and held it out.

  “I’ll pass,” I said. “Got any wheat toast?”

  “Eat.” He set my plate on the ground and filled one of his own. “You’re going to need it.”

  I hadn’t eaten since yesterday. Today was not going to be easy. While training, Sawyer not only forgot meals but such niceties as bathroom breaks and sleep. The man could go for days without food or water or rest. He often did.

  When we were finished, we picked up our plates and went into the house. Sawyer loaded the dishwasher. For an instant I paused at the incongruity of him cooking breakfast in the yard over an open fire, then loading a dishwasher as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  “It’s time,” he said, and pushed the start button.

  I jumped as the machine sprang to life with a dull roar. Sawyer walked past me without a glance. By the time I got outside, he’d tossed something funky onto the fire, which then leaped higher than his head.

  He sat in the dirt cross-legged and stared into the dancing flames. He seemed fascinated by them, so I plopped down and stared too, but all I saw was fire.

  “Open yourself,” he murmured.

  I tensed so fast and so hard, my back screamed in protest. “You know I—”

  He turned his head; his eyes were pools of black, the pupils dilated so large, they’d overtaken the gray of the irises. The sun blazed down. How could he keep his eyes open without agony shooting into his brain from the abundance of light?

  “To know the truth, you must open yourself.”

  “I don’t know how.” I never had.

  All those years ago Sawyer had tried everything to get me to open myself to the heavens, the earth, the father, the mother, all manner of beings and places and New Age—or was that hippie?—claptrap. I couldn’t do it.

  “Open your mind.” He placed his palm
against my forehead.

  My eyes crossed. I should have closed them, except that would be like turning my back on a wild animal, and I knew better.

  “Open your heart.” His palm lowered to my chest. Fingers spread, his pinky brushed the swell of one breast, his thumb paused just short of the nipple on the other.

  My borrowed shirt was cotton, thin from repeated washings. The heat of his skin seemed to burn through the fabric, scalding what lay beneath. Awareness sprang to life, and for just an instant another world shimmered at the edge of my vision before winking out as if it had never been.

  Our gazes met. Mine narrowed; his stayed wide and eerily black.

  “Open yourself,” he intoned.

  I lifted my hand and removed his from my chest. He blinked. His eyes went back the way they were supposed to be—human, not… whatever they’d been—and the dancing flames fell back to the earth with an audible whoosh.

  “Don’t touch me,” I said.

  When he touched me I didn’t feel like myself. When he touched me I wanted something I had no business wanting.

  Him.

  Chapter 21

  The crunch of tires on gravel had us glancing toward the road. I hadn’t realized I’d been hoping to see a Hummer until my stomach dropped at the sight of a pickup truck.

  It dropped even farther at the sight of the woman who climbed out of it.

  Short and slim, with naturally blond hair and dewy pink skin, she had blue eyes, of course. Her Levi’s fit like a second skin; her denim shirt was unbuttoned halfway down, bestowing enticing peaks at her perky breasts: her cowboy hat framed a beautiful oval face, and her boots were just dusty enough to make her human. She looked strange in these clothes, probably because the last time I’d seen her she hadn’t been wearing any.

  “What in hell are you doing here?” I demanded.

  “Have we met?”

  Not really. She’d never seen me, and I’d only seen her once, all those years ago when I’d touched Jimmy and discovered he’d been touching someone else.

  My hands curled into fists as I got to my feet. Sawyer was already standing, contemplating me with both amusement and concern.