Doomsday Can Wait Page 6

  “Touched you?” I swam closer. “Made love to you?”

  “Why did you?” he whispered.

  I’d needed to drown out the bad memories with good ones. I’d hoped that he could get past all that had happened, all that he’d done, if I pretended that I’d gotten past it. But when I’d woken the morning after, Jimmy had been gone. One of the things Jimmy was very good at—besides sex—was leaving.

  I didn’t want to bring up the time I’d spent as Jimmy’s captive in the Strega’s lair. Those recollections would do neither one of us any good.

  Instead, I set my hands on his knees. His eyes sprang open. As always, whenever we got near each other, we had a hard time thinking with our heads and ignoring other more interesting parts of our anatomy.

  My palms slid over his thighs, the clenching muscles like stone against my fingertips. He smelled like rain, different yet still the same. I stepped between his legs, looked into his face. He tried to scoot back. Maybe get to his feet and run away again, I don’t know. Off balance, he tipped forward, and all it took was a tiny tug for him to join me.

  His body bumped mine, here and there, then here again as the water brought us together and apart.

  He gained his feet; I did, too, so close my breasts slid across his chest. I lost my footing, nearly went under, and he grabbed me. We froze, but only for an instant. Then we were kissing as if we’d been separated for a de-cade.

  I don’t know what got into me. I hadn’t planned to kiss him, to touch him. I hadn’t had any sort of plan at all.

  But once I did, it seemed right to show him that some things hadn’t changed. That this hadn’t changed. We only had to be near each other to want, only had to brush against each other to need.

  Familiar yet forever exciting, his mouth met mine. Tongues touched, hands wandered. I shoved mine under what was left of his shirt, warmed my chilled fingers against him, learning again the contours of his skin.

  His erection pressed into my stomach, warm where I was cold. The kiss melted toward more; his mouth traced my jaw, my neck; he mouthed first one nipple, then the other, through the gauze of my soaked shirt.

  I couldn’t help it, I lifted my feet, wrapped my thighs around his hips, and pressed us together through several layers of soaked clothing. The fit was close, but not quite there.

  As if knowing what I wanted, needed, probably because he wanted it, too, he swung me around until my back was against the side of the pool, then ground us together, even as his mouth opened, taking more of me, his tongue pressing, laving, teasing.

  I arched, gasping, begging. Against me he pulsed, the rhythmic beat calling my own. The cave echoed with the rasp of our breathing and the lap of the water upon the rock face, the two sounds syncopated, nearly as arousing as the heat of his body and the pulse of his heart.

  He pressed his face to the curve of my neck. Inhaling deeply, as if he wanted to memorize my scent. Right now I probably smelled like—

  Blood.

  I stiffened, even as he licked my skin, grazed the damp flesh with his teeth, took a fold into his mouth and suckled.

  Images flickered—other women in his arms, other men. The taste of the blood, the sexual pull of it. The desire to feed, to devour, to possess, the struggle not to kill.

  I felt everything as if those feelings were mine. I tasted the blood; I wanted it, too. I wanted him to feed on me while he took me, hard against the wall, the orgasm made stronger by the draining of my life into his mouth.

  I shuddered and pushed at his shoulders. Without any hesitation, he let me go.

  “You saw?” he murmured.

  My eyes narrowed. He’d done that on purpose.

  “Did you think I’d be disgusted?” I asked. “That I wouldn’t understand? That isn’t you, Jimmy.”

  His lips curved into a humorless smile. “The Strega’s dead. Who else could it be?”

  “I felt your struggle. You didn’t—” I paused. “Did you?”

  “Didn’t what?” He looked at me, one quick glance and then away. “Force them? I never have to force anyone. Once I drink from them a few times, they’ll do anything I want.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He hauled himself out of the pool; his clothes dripped enough water onto the dirt floor of the cave to create a puddle of mud. “Remember the Strega’s harem?”

  How could I forget? The women had behaved like something out of a sci-fi movie—robots on parade.

  “The more a vampire feeds on someone, the more they’re tied to him.”

  I sloshed to the side of the pool as my mind mulled over Jimmy’s words. Was that why I couldn’t seem to let him go? How many times had he fed on me in Manhattan? I couldn’t remember.

  Except I’d staked him in that glass tower, had planned to stake him again, until, at the death of the strega, Jimmy had snapped out of his evil twin persona. I wouldn’t have been able to hurt him if he were capable of controlling me.

  And the undeniable attraction I had for him dated from way back. Even when he’d broken my heart, walked out of my life, I’d never been able to forget him. That I couldn’t now was just more of the same, not some new mind control brought about by his sinking his fangs into me one too many times.

  I hoisted myself out of the water as a sudden thought drove out the others. “If vampires can control humans by feeding on them, that means they could take over the earth.”

  “I think that’s what Daddy had planned.”

  “Why hasn’t it happened already?” I asked. “I’m sure there are plenty of bloodsuckers out there; they’re feeding at will, so how is it that the whole world isn’t one big vampire harem?”

  “Because most vampires kill. Once they start feeding, they can’t stop. They don’t want to.”

  “So what was wrong with the strega?”

  “He was powerful enough to control himself.”

  I tilted my head. “So can you.”

  He threw up his hands; droplets of water smacked me in the face. “If that were true, Lizzy, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “You aren’t killing people, that’s control. If you’ve managed to do that much in a month, eventually you’ll be able to stop the vampire urges altogether.”

  “Maybe,” he murmured. “But I can’t take that chance. For all I know, the more I feed, the less human I’ll get.”

  He could be right.

  “These things take time,” I said.

  “We don’t have time. You need me now.”

  “It appears we’ve been granted a reprieve.”

  He frowned. “What?”

  “Did you ever hear the rumor that by killing the leader of the darkness we could end Doomsday?”

  “You can’t end it. Doomsday is inevitable.”

  “Fine.” I said. “Then postpone it.”

  Jimmy shook his head, but he was thinking. “Reverse the prophecy, reverse the results. It makes sense.” He smacked his hands together in frustration. “I should have thought of that.”

  “Wouldn’t have mattered, I’d have killed the strega anyway.”

  He remained silent for several seconds, then, “What’s it like out there?” He jerked his head toward the mouth of the cave.

  “Calmer than it should be if chaos were reigning.”

  “All this means is that they’ll have to kill you to start Doomsday all over again.”

  I shrugged. “They were trying to kill me anyway. They’re trying to kill all of us.”

  Jimmy pressed his palms to his eyes. “I’ve got to get rid of this thing inside of me. You need help.”

  “What I need is you healthy, sane, at the top of your game.”

  “What if I never get there?”

  I didn’t answer. I couldn’t leave him in this cave in-definitely; I probably shouldn’t leave him here at all. But what was I going to do with him?

  “Jimmy, I have to have the seers’ contact information that you got from Ruthie.”

  “You mean the ones I stole out of her mind while she w
as sleeping?”

  Besides being a dhampir, Jimmy was also a dream walker. He could slip into a person’s dreams, steal their memories, their knowledge, their secrets, and leave no trace that he’d ever been there. That he’d been compelled to dream walk, along with everything else, didn’t seem much comfort to him at all.

  “If you hadn’t,” I said, “we’d be in trouble. I need that information.”

  Luckily he’d begun to remember things the Strega had made him forget soon after the miserable bastard had died.

  “You couldn’t just ask her when you ‘see’ her?” He made quotation marks in the air around the word see.

  “I haven’t had a visit from Ruthie since I got home.”

  I left out the woman of smoke and the amulet. He had enough problems without mine.

  Jimmy frowned. “How did you find me?”

  “Summer saw you in Barnaby’s Gap and here we are.”

  “Jesus.” He rubbed his forehead. “You came together?”

  “Yes.”

  He lowered his hand. “Where is she?”

  “In the car, I think.”

  “Please tell me you haven’t been comparing notes.”

  I wrinkled my nose. “We have better things to talk about than your sexual prowess, Sanducci. She is, after all, a DK. I’m a seer, and even though I killed the last leader of the darkness, that just means there’s a new one on the way. We need to replenish the federation and quick.”

  “How?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Some of the kids Ruthie had at her place were probably future federation members. She always took on the problem kids, the ones with too much imagination, the ones who lied, the ones who had problems staying with families because weird things always happened around them. That kind of stuff usually translates to special powers.”

  “Those kids are too young for this,” I said.

  “We may have no choice.”

  I shook my head. There was no way I was sending teenagers after demons. Unless I had to.

  God, I hoped I didn’t have to.

  “The names, Jimmy.”

  He strode out of the cavern. I hurried after. All I needed was for him to take off again.

  But I saw him turn and disappear down another stone hallway in the opposite direction of the exit. A few hundred yards away I found him in a cavern along with his duffel, a brand-new sleeping bag, a fire pit, canteen, and other evidence that he’d been living here. He’d already began to strip.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Putting on dry clothes. You want some?”

  I shook my head, unable to make my mouth move as he peeled off his tattered shirt and then his pants. He was the same beautiful, sun-bronzed shade all over. The sight of all that skin made me want to lick him like an ice-cream cone.

  Hell. I turned around.

  “You should get out of those wet things,” he called.

  “That’s what they all say.”

  He laughed. The sound gave me hope. I hadn’t heard Jimmy laugh with true humor since long before Manhattan.

  A sheet of paper appeared next to my face. On it were names, addresses—both snail and e-mail—along with phone numbers.

  “Thanks.” I took it.

  Because each seer worked independently with his or her own psychic connection and personal contingent of DKs, there’d rarely been any need for the leader of the federation to contact them. According to Ruthie, when a new leader appeared, the seers would come to him other once it was safe, to pledge their allegiance.

  “They aren’t going to be there,” Jimmy said. “Everyone’s in hiding. I blabbed their identities to the enemy.”

  “Blabbing isn’t exactly the term I’d use.”

  “They’re all dead because of me.”

  “Not all.”

  He cast me a look.

  “Are you going to give up?” I asked. “Just lie down and die?”

  He glanced away, and I got a very bad feeling. “Why did you write this down?”

  Jimmy shrugged.

  “You didn’t think I’d get here in time.”

  “In time for what?” he asked, but I knew.

  “In time for you to tell me the names before you killed yourself.”

  “You always were a smart girl.”

  Jimmy had been taking the blame for Ruthie’s death, and everyone else’s, since he’d snapped out of his evil twin phase. Certainly he’d been the one who’d compromised their identities, but he hadn’t meant to. Jimmy had adored Ruthie as much as I did. He never would have revealed her identity to the bad guys if he’d been able to stop himself.

  However, she was still dead—something he’d pointed out to me often enough—and all the regret in the world wasn’t going to bring Ruthie back. Neither would Jimmy killing himself.

  “Don’t do it, Jimmy.”

  “I can’t.” He sounded disgusted. “And not because I’m gutless, but because of what I am, how I have to be killed.”

  “Twice in the same way,” I murmured.

  “Every time I manage the first death, I lose consciousness; I die, and then I can’t kill myself again. I wake up completely healed.” His eyes met mine. “Someone’s going to have to do it for me.”

  “Not me,” I blurted.

  He shrugged. “I know someone who will.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him that I needed him. That I couldn’t win this fight without him. That he couldn’t die and leave me alone with the monsters.

  Before I could, the room spun, lights that weren’t there flashed. My stomach rolled.

  Not now, I thought.

  But as soon as I closed my eyes, I had a vision.

  CHAPTER 8

  A small room full of people holding hands and chanting. Candles flickered; the faces did, too.

  Woman, wolf, woman. Man, wolf, man. Over and over the human guise gave way to that of a beast.

  I stared so hard my head began to ache, trying to remember the appearance of each and every one, but there were so many.

  “Kill them all,” they whispered as one. “The earth will be ooouurrss.”

  The last word became a howl, and this time when their faces went wolf, they stayed that way. Their bodies contorted. Hands and feet became paws, spines crackled and shifted, fur covered every inch of skin.

  I’d seen werewolves before, killed them, too. Silver bullets worked as well as the legends said.

  However, werewolves were bigger than their animal counterparts, with glowing yellow eyes and creepily human shadows. These wolves looked just like wolves, except I’d seen them shape-shift and knew better.

  Luceres.

  The word whispered through my head. I’d never heard it before, didn’t know what it meant beyond a name for the Nephilim I was seeing.

  The beasts began to mill around the room, agitated, revealing as they paced what made them different.

  They didn’t have tails. That oughta make them easy to spot.

  Suddenly, the largest of the group leaped through the window, and glass rained down. The others followed, springing gracefully through the now wide-open portal.

  Beneath a moon-drenched sky, the luceres ran as a pack. I’d hoped for a nice open field, no sign of a house or a town. Maybe even a sign that read: nowhere, Wyoming—population 3. But nothing was ever that easy.

  Instead, the wolves raced through suburban streets. The houses had been recently built; bicycles, tricycles, and Flintstones cars cluttered the driveways.

  “Where are you?” I muttered.

  As I watched, fireworks exploded in the distance, illuminating a familiar skyline, the resulting thunder rattling the earth.

  Then I was falling out of the vision, waking up on the floor of the cave nauseous, sore, and dizzy. My clothes were still soaked, cool against my flushed skin. My shoes squelched when I wiggled my toes. The earth beneath me shook with thunder, the sound reminiscent of the fireworks I’d viewed hundreds of miles away near the—

  “Sea
rs Tower,” I muttered.

  “Chicago.”

  Summer leaned in the doorway. I stayed right where I was, too out of it to sit up. From prior experience I knew the dizzy nausea would pass; I just had to keep my head still for a few minutes.

  I received information in one of three ways. Ruthie spoke if a Nephilim came near; she told me what they were in visions like the one I’d just had; and she also came to me in dreams to answer what questions she could. There were rules about ghost whispering, and some information she couldn’t reveal—usually what I really needed to know.

  Visions always left me weak and loopy, but they also imparted the most useful information.

  “Ever heard of a lucere?” I asked.

  Summer came closer, then sat on the ground and drew up her legs so she could rest her chin on her knees. I wondered if she’d practiced that adorable pose in front of a mirror.

  Rain trickled into the pool, pinging against the surface with a quick rat-a-tat-tat. Outside it was pouring, yet Summer was as dry as the desert in July.

  “A lucere is a type of lycanthrope,” she answered.

  “I got that when they changed from people into wolves.”

  Her blue eyes narrowed. “You want the information or you want to be a smart guy?”

  I didn’t answer because obviously I wanted both, and after a few seconds, she went on.

  “Luceres roved near Rome. Some call them ‘lucumo-nes,’ derived from loco.”

  “So they’re crazier than the average werewolf?”

  “Yes. In ancient times luceres would form tribes or packs and wipe out entire villages.”

  Kill them all.

  “I think they’re still following that plan,” I murmured.

  “Luceres shift following a ceremony.” Which coincided with what I’d seen in my vision. “Once they decimated an area, the land, the homes, the businesses became theirs. They’d send a part of the tribe on to the next town they coveted, forming a new pack, blanketing entire areas with their kind.”

  “An ancient Roman version of a hostile takeover.”

  “So to speak,” Summer agreed. “Some scholars believe the first lucere was King Lycaeon, a Greek king—”

  “How could the first lucere be Greek,” I interrupted, “then wind up in Rome?”