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  “I knew I could do it,” I murmured.

  “Are you insane?” Summer asked, her tone almost conversational.

  I ignored her, so damn glad to see Sawyer my legs wobbled.

  “Thank God,” I whispered, and started forward.

  “Wait,” Luther murmured. Something in his voice stopped me. Luther’s shining amber eyes were fixed on Sawyer; his nostrils flared, every muscle tensed. The kid’s kinky curls stirred in an impossible breeze. “Ruthie says, ‘Skinwalker.’ “

  “We know.” I didn’t pause to wonder why Ruthie was telling us twice—something she never did—but moved toward Sawyer again. I stopped a few feet away when the breeze that wasn’t brought me his scent.

  Not trees and grass, wind and water with a hint of smoke, but ashes, embers, hot coals and flames.

  “Sawyer?” I whispered.

  His head cocked as if he recognized the name, or maybe my voice, and I took a good look at him. He had tattoos in all the right places, and I could see each one since, as usual, he was naked. But his skin was pale, his eyes dark—the gray irises vanished beneath the dilated ebony of his pupils—his hair, usually straight and sleek, was tangled with sweat. He appeared almost feral, even before the low, savage snarl rumbled free.

  Quick as a snake he struck, snatching me by the throat and slamming me against the nearest wall. My head cracked; I saw stars. My feet dangled several inches off the ground as Sawyer held me aloft with just one hand. He’d always been freakishly strong.

  “Put her down!” Summer ordered.

  He flicked his other wrist and tossed her through the front window.

  A movement caught my eye. Luther. Sneaking up from the rear, in his hand a silver knife that would do nothing but piss Sawyer off. He appeared pissed off enough already.

  “No,” I croaked, only to have Sawyer tighten his fingers until I saw shiny black dots. Luther froze.

  “Who—” Sawyer tapped my head against the wall for emphasis. “—are you?”

  His voice was hoarse, as if he’d been screaming for days and only just gotten back the power of speech.

  “Liz,” Luther answered. “She’s Liz Phoenix. Don’t you remember?”

  Luther spoke as if he were talking to a wild, crazed animal, and the way Sawyer appeared right now, I thought that was a damn good idea.

  Sawyer peered into my face, and recognition flickered in his eerie black eyes. I tried to smile, to speak, but both were impossible. What I really needed to do was breathe.

  “I remember you,” he murmured.

  Then he tore out my throat.

  CHAPTER 35

  I guess I deserved it. Tit for tat. I kill you; you kill me. Revenge. Payback. Whatever.

  It wasn’t as if I could die. Not yet. I had too many things left to do.

  The arterial blood spray hit Sawyer right between the eyes. I wondered if he would have let me go otherwise.

  I crumpled to the floor, blacked out for a second or two. A boom like a cannon brought me back. I caught the scent of ozone, sensed movement, then the dead silence was broken by a lion’s roar. I tried to get up, to stop Luther from following. Sawyer wasn’t himself. He’d been dangerous before; he’d be lethal now.

  And I’d brought him back to life.

  My attempt to gain my feet only made my throat wound bleed worse, and I fainted this time for real.

  I don’t know how long I was out. I’d figured I would go dreamwalking, where I’d find answers to my most desperate questions—and I had a lot of them. But in the darkness there was only more darkness, and when I awoke even more questions.

  “What have you done, Liz?” Both Luther and Summer stood over me.

  I was so glad to see the kid in one piece I reached for his hand. He put both behind his back.

  I swallowed. My throat appeared to be working just fine. “What I had to.”

  I patted my neck. Sore, but I’d healed enough to move, though the blood was still slick and plentiful. Not only was I going to need a shower and new clothes, but if Summer hadn’t been a fairy, she’d need a wet vac and new wallpaper.

  “You sold your soul to raise him,” Summer said. She had glass in her hair; her shorts were torn. Other than that—not a mark on her. Bitch.

  “I didn’t sell anything.” I sat up, holding on to my head with both hands when it pounded like a snare drum. “I took.”

  Understanding flickered in Summer’s eyes. “You fucked a Nephilim.”

  I didn’t bother to answer. I didn’t want to answer. I didn’t really need to.

  “You are crazy.”

  “We need him.”

  “Not like that we don’t,” Summer muttered.

  I didn’t answer because I feared she was right.

  “I never would have figured you for a whore,” she said.

  “No? I pegged you as one right away.”

  Summer snarled, the “otherness” beneath her pretty face escaping. Luther stepped between us.

  “Stop,” he said, and the voice was Ruthie’s.

  “You have got to be kidding me.” Summer shoved Luther’s shoulder, but she was looking at me. “You and Jimmy do the horizontal bop, shove your demons beneath the moon, and you turn around and snatch another one? Why the hell did you bother? Did you just have to do him to prove you still could?”

  I began to understand her hostility. Not that she’d ever been exactly friendly, but she was really on a roll tonight. Sanducci must have told her that we’d confined our demons.

  “Moron,” I muttered.

  “Watch it.” Summer’s hands clenched.

  I was going to say not you then figured, why bother?

  “When Jimmy and I performed the spell I had no idea how to get Sawyer back.”

  “You have the guts to condemn me over what I did for Jimmy, but you did a lot worse.”

  “Worse?” I lifted one hand, palm up near my face. “Sell my soul?” I put the other, palm up, near my hip. “Screw a Nephilim?” Then I changed their positions a few times. “Yeah, what I did was definitely worse than what you did.”

  I was being sarcastic, but Summer nodded as if satisfied.

  “Enough,” Ruthie snapped. “We all do what we think is best at the time.”

  Luther’s gaze met mine, his no longer hazel but deep brown. I knew Ruthie was thinking of the things she’d done, things that had hurt me and others. I understood her so much better now. Hell, I even felt an annoying camaraderie with Summer. The things we do for love.

  Though I sympathized with the fairy, I couldn’t help but point out, “I can confine the new demon. You’re always gonna owe Satan a favor.”

  Summer’s eyes widened. Luther sighed, shook his head, and cast me a disappointed glance. “Lizbeth.”

  “Well, it’s true,” I said. “Isn’t it?”

  “Suspect so,” Ruthie agreed.

  “Except you’re gonna need someone who loves you to confine it, and Jimmy’s gone,” Summer sneered.

  I stilled. “What was that?”

  Summer appeared to have swallowed a rotten egg. “Nothing,” she said, but her voice was strangled.

  “I thought the plenus luna malum spell was a sex spell.”

  “No, child,” Ruthie murmured. “It’s all about love.”

  “Did Jimmy know it was a love spell?”

  Summer’s lips tightened. She wasn’t going to tell me.

  “Of course,” Ruthie murmured.

  I thought of that night, of the candles and the incense, how strange it had been for Jimmy to use them.

  “Pink candles,” I blurted.

  Summer scowled; Luther’s eyebrows shot up.

  “Conjures memories,” Ruthie said.

  Jimmy had been trying to bring back our memories of love. Had he been unsure of my feelings or his?

  “Love is stronger than hate,” Ruthie said, something she believed utterly, but about which I still had many doubts. “And sex with love,” Ruthie continued, “is the most powerful kind of magic.”r />
  I swallowed against the sudden tightness in my throat. Jimmy still loved me.

  No wonder Summer wanted me dead.

  On the heels of that thought came another. Summer and Jimmy had done that spell. I guess he loved her, too.

  I couldn’t be too angry. The only reason any of us was alive right now was because I’d loved—

  “Sawyer.”

  “He isn’t going to be much use for a love spell,” Summer observed. “Considering he tried to kill you.” She tilted her head as an exaggerated expression of deep thought spread over her face. “But did he ever love you? Or did you just love him?”

  I’d never been certain about that myself. Right now, though, I had a more important question. “Where is he?”

  “Turned into a wolf and—” Luther’s huge hands flipped upward in a very Ruthie-like gesture. “Disappeared into the mountains.”

  “Frick,” I muttered. We were never going to find him there.

  “I tried to warn you,” Ruthie said.

  “Consequences.” I took a deep breath. “He isn’t the same.”

  “He’s exactly what he’s always been.”

  I glanced up sharply. “You saw him. He’s—”

  “He’s a skinwalker, child. He’s always walked the line. The only thing that kept him from the dark side was you.”

  “Now he’s crossed over?”

  Luther’s long finger slid slickly down the side of my neck then appeared in front of my face covered in blood. “What do you think?”

  “Just because he’s annoyed with me doesn’t mean he’s gone to the dark side,” I muttered.

  “I’d say tearing out your throat and leaving you for dead goes beyond annoyance,” Ruthie returned.

  I’d have to agree.

  “You get any word from above about this?” I asked.

  Ruthie’s wise old eyes narrowed in Luther’s bright young face. “Why you think I whispered ‘skinwalker’ to the boy? Sawyer’s more Nephilim than human now.”

  “Nice job, Ace,” Summer muttered.

  “Can I kick her?” I asked.

  No one answered. It had been rhetorical anyway.

  Luther’s head swung toward the front window just as headlights flashed.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  Ruthie breathed in deeply, let the air stream out slowly. “No evil vibes.” Her lips tightened. “But I still don’t like it.”

  Neither did I. It was late. We were in the middle of nowhere.

  Stones crunched beneath tires. First the lights died, then the motor.

  “I’ll go.” Luther had returned.

  “Like hell.” I reached for him, and his lion rumbled.

  “We go together or not at all,” he said.

  “Fine,” I snapped.

  I followed him into the hall, Summer at my back, only to discover the front door had been blown off its hinges.

  Sawyer. He always did like to make an exit.

  I stood between them, shoulder-to-shoulder on the porch, as two men climbed out of a pickup truck. They were white, not Navajo.

  Stranger and stranger. We were deep in Navajo country and as I’d said, it was late.

  “Evening.” The nearest one to me pushed back the brim of his hat. He was about thirty. Nothing special, unless you counted his total forgettableness. He was dark; the other was blond and just as forgettable.

  The blond looked between me and Summer then settled on me. “You Liz Phoenix?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “We’re just delivery boys.”

  “It takes two?”

  “We heard you might be . . .” The blond’s voice trailed off.

  “Unhappy,” the dark man finished.

  I liked this less and less by the minute.

  “Who sent you?”

  “Don’t know. Instructions and package came US mail.”

  “And you just do what you’re told?”

  The blond appeared confused. “That’s what we do.”

  I found no point in continuing this. They’d said they were delivery boys. Add to that the lack of a demon “buzz” on both mine and Luther’s part, as well as Ruthie’s dearth of info, and I found myself believing them.

  “Better hand it over,” I said.

  The blond came forward with a brown-paper-wrapped box. When he reached the bottom of the steps, Luther moved in front of me. The guy took one glance at the kid’s face and tossed it the rest of the way. I hoped whatever rested inside wasn’t breakable.

  By the time I bent and retrieved the package, the two men had climbed back in the truck.

  “They were human.” Luther watched them leave. “One hundred percent.”

  “That way we don’t feel them coming.”

  “But they were only delivering”—he waved his hand in my direction—“whatever that is.”

  “If they’d been Nephilim, we’d have killed them.” Luther nodded. “You think—” His gaze turned to the taillights of the pickup. “You think they sent people after Faith this time, too?”

  “Maybe,” I said.

  Probably, I thought. The Nephilim were getting wise. They knew we’d have a hard time killing people in cold blood. Unlike them.

  The three of us trailed into the living room, and I set the box on the coffee table. I didn’t want to open it. At least the container was too small for a head, unless it was a very small head.

  A strange noise escaped me—half sob, half battle cry—and I yanked off the top. Faith’s binkie lay inside.

  I snatched it up, pressing the pink flannel to my face—baby powder, baby sweat, baby tears, and—

  “Faith,” I whispered.

  “There’s a note.” Luther’s voice sounded the same as mine—choked with both fury and fear.

  Summer picked up the paper, glanced at it, then handed the page to me.

  “You for her,” I read.

  Exactly like my dream, except for one thing.

  “Bring Daddy along, too.”

  EPILOGUE

  Let’s recap . . .

  Faith’s been kidnapped.

  Jimmy’s missing.

  I’ve got another demon inside me.

  Luther’s Ruthie. Again.

  Summer still owes the devil her soul.

  And I need Sawyer to save Faith, but he appears to have embraced his own darkness.

  Does that about cover it?

  Chaos anyone?

  At least I know what I have to do. Same thing I always do. Whatever it takes.

  I’m getting Faith back, Jimmy too, and while I’m at it I’ll deal with Sawyer.

  I made a bad choice, a stupid decision based on love and a dream. I’m not the first woman to do that, and I definitely won’t be the last. In my case, there’s one important difference.

  When I get where I’m going, there’ll be demons at the gates.

  Table of Contents

  COVER PAGE

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT PAGE

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  EPILOGUE

   

  Lori Handeland, Chaos Bites