Hex Appeal (34 page)

Jimmy stirred. He’d been sleeping since we hit the New Mexico border. You’d think his being unconscious would have made the trip easier. Unfortunately, it only meant my gaze kept flicking to him, cataloging memories I’d retained from my dreams.

Like the way his lashes lay on his cheeks, thick and dark, reminding me of how they fluttered against my belly in the wake of his lips.

Or the supple length of his fingers, which could leave me gasping, straining, begging with just one stroke.

When the wind whistled through the tiny crack he’d cranked in the passenger window, ruffling across his skin, stirring his hair then flicking the scent of cinnamon and soap into my face, my whole body tingled with the memory of things that hadn’t even happened.

Jimmy sat up, staring at the huge blob of land that filled the windshield. “Needle? Haystack? Hell,” he muttered.

“I know where to go.”

He cast me a quick glance. “You
are
good at this.”

“I am,” I agreed, though again, his praise warmed me. “But you see that?” I pointed to the billowing cloud of smoke that trailed toward the excruciatingly blue sky. “We should probably check it out.”

“Where there’s smoke, there’s fire?”

“Where there’s destruction, there’s usually a Nephilim. That looks like more than a campfire.” It looked like half a town was burning. “If that isn’t the work of our sorcerer, it’s probably the work of something else we need to kill.”

Jimmy’s hand went to his pocket, where he traced the outline of his switchblade. “Fine by me.”

When we reached the blaze, we discovered enough pickup trucks and old, dusty cars to fill a honky-tonk parking lot and a pyre surrounded by at least a hundred people, who stared at the leaping, dancing flames as if mesmerized.

“Zombies,” Jimmy whispered.

In our world, they might be.

I got out of the car, opened the trunk, grabbed a few machetes, and tossed one to Jimmy. He lifted his brows, and I shrugged. “If parts of them start falling off and they try to bite you?” I made a chopping motion. “Off with their heads.”

I didn’t think they were zombies—I doubted the walking dead would be hanging around so close to a fire since it was one of the few things, along with decapitation, that killed them—but I wasn’t going to bet Jimmy’s life on it.

As we approached, a few of the observers turned. They were all Navajo, and quite obviously alive—no decaying eyes, moldering arms, putrefying thighs, or gangrenous tongues. Lucky us.

Hell, lucky them.

I paused and laid a hand on Jimmy’s arm. The ripple of awareness when my palm touched his skin made me shiver despite the steady beat of the sun on the crown of my hat.

He cast me a curious glance, and I lowered my voice to a range that no human could hear. “The Navajo still believe in monsters. We haven’t had to dust anything out this way in ages. They do it for us.”

“You mean…?” Jimmy let his gaze trail back to the massive, billowing bonfire. “We should just walk away?”

“Well…” I hesitated. “Why don’t we make sure it works, then walk away?”

The Navajo whispered among themselves.

He walks in darkness.

He is the night.

Born of smoke.

Death.

Beasts.

Magic.

I think we’d found our man.

We stood there for hours, waiting for the fire to die. We couldn’t see anything through the thick, choking smoke. We also didn’t hear anything but the crackle of the flames, and we didn’t smell anything but burning wood and acrid fumes.

That should have tipped me off right away. Nothing burns without screaming. Nothing dies without moving. Nothing turns to ashes without one hell of an unpleasant smell.

Eventually, the Navajo climbed into their vehicles and drove away. They didn’t seem concerned about us. Considering the lack of evidence left behind, they didn’t need to be.

When the last dusty pickup disappeared into the sun that hovered just above the western horizon, Jimmy spoke. “Now what?”

“Now we douse that fire, then bury whatever’s left in at least four different places.”

Jimmy’s shoulders slumped on a sigh. “Okay.”

“Disappointed?”

“I wanted to kick some ass.”

Behind him, the ashes rippled. The red embers glowed brighter and brighter, then gave a subtle
whoosh.

“We might have to,” I murmured.

Jimmy spun as the pyre reignited, shooting as high as some of the oldest trees. The flames themselves became a man, then the man became a wolf, a mountain lion, a writhing snake. Every time I blinked, the image re-formed—now a hawk, next a tarantula, and, once again, a man.

“Shape-shifter.” Jimmy’s silver blade sliced the heated air.

“Worse,” I said, as the blazing man walked out of the inferno completely unharmed. “He’s a skinwalker. That fire only pissed him off.”

As he stalked toward us, his long, dark hair streamed back, the coming night air causing the flames that still licked at the ends to extinguish with an audible
poof.
He glistened in the dying sun, the tattoos that graced nearly every inch of his body seeming to dance as muscles rippled beneath his skin.

He wasn’t tall; he didn’t need to be. The power, or maybe it was the fury, cascaded off him with such force the grass beneath his feet curdled and died.

“Should we run?” Jimmy asked.

The man approaching us smiled. The expression frightened me. But Sawyer always had.

I stepped in front of Jimmy, my arm lifting to make use of my magic. Sawyer flicked his hand. He was still five feet away; he never touched me, yet I flew off my feet and landed fifty yards south. If I’d been human, the force of the fall would have fricasseed my brains. Instead, I was up and running almost instantly.

I was too late. I’d known even while I was still airborne that I would be.

Jimmy plunged the silver switchblade into Sawyer’s chest. When Sawyer didn’t burst into ashes, Jimmy took a step back, but he didn’t run. Maybe he should have.

Except Sawyer could shift in an instant; he could move faster than the eye could track. There was no point in running. Jimmy’s fate had been sealed long before now.

Sawyer lowered his head to look at the knife. He seemed calm enough, but the pyre behind him suddenly ignited all the way to the sky. Then, as quick as the lightning he commanded, Sawyer yanked the knife from his own chest and plunged it into Jimmy’s.

Even as I shouted, “No!” I was wondering—

Of all the times I’d seen Jimmy die, why hadn’t I ever seen this?

Jimmy collapsed to his knees, then tumbled onto his side. Sawyer tilted his head like the hawk tattooed at the base of his spine, staring at the dying man before him. Blood trickled down his bare chest, glistening in the glow of the dancing flames. But there was less blood than there should have been. His wound had already begun to heal.

I fell to the ground, tugging Jimmy onto his back. Someone was chanting, “No, no, no.” I think it was me.

His eyes were closed, his face more gray than pale, his lips white. All the blood in the world seemed to be darkening his once mint green shirt.

The panic in my head, the utter devastation in my heart was the same panic and devastation that had swamped me upon awakening from every dream where Jimmy had died.

Sawyer’s hand appeared, reaching for the knife, and I sprayed glitter dust without thought, coating him from knuckle to neck.

“Don’t touch him,” I said, and beneath my usual voice, rumbled a beast of my own. I was going to kill him. As soon as I figured out how. “Never touch him again.”

Sawyer squatted on the other side of Jimmy’s body. “If you want him to heal,” he said in a voice that was so deep it rumbled the mountain, “you need to take out the knife.”

I lifted my gaze. My magic still clung to his skin, but it did nothing to stop him from snatching the blade and yanking it out. He stuck his fingers into the hole the knife had left in the shirt and yanked, exposing Jimmy’s chest, slick with blood, and the two-inch slice in his skin, which had just begun to close. Not as fast as Sawyer’s—his was nearly gone—but fast enough.

“Who is he?” Sawyer asked. “From the way you were keening, I’d guess him to be your long-lost love.”

I kept my gaze on Jimmy’s face, but I felt my own burn. “I just met him yesterday.”

“Sure you did.”

“Ruthie sent him.” I frowned. “To kill you.”

“I doubt that.”

“You don’t think Ruthie would kill you?”

Sawyer laughed, and the sound seemed to flow from those mountains and not his mouth. “If only she knew how. If only anyone did.”

“But he—” I began.

“He’s a dhampir,” Sawyer interrupted. “And a vampire I am not.”

“I know what he is.”

Jimmy’s face was less gray but still pale. The knife wound continued to knit together slower than I’d like. Of course, I’d like never to have been there in the first place, but I’d learned, way back at the Fall, that what I liked meant nothing at all.

“If that were the case, you would have known better than to think a simple knife to the chest would end him.”

I blinked. He was right. But I’d seen Jimmy die so many times in so many ways, I’d panicked.

“I still don’t understand why Ruthie would send him to kill you.”

“She didn’t,” Sawyer said slowly, as if I’d hit my head when he’d tossed me. Maybe I had. Because none of this was making any more sense now than it had before. Unless—

I tilted my head, eyes narrowing. “This was a test?”

Sawyer lifted his bare shoulder—the one where a black wolf howled.

Seemed like a fairly easy test to me. Although Ruthie probably hadn’t expected Sawyer to be on fire when we arrived.

Jimmy’s eyes fluttered, then opened. I smiled. “Hey,” I began.

A spark of red flared at their center, and he reached out quick as any beast, grabbing Sawyer’s ankle and yanking him to the ground. An instant later, he landed on Sawyer’s chest, wrapped both hands around his throat, and began to squeeze.

Sawyer just looked bored.

“Jimmy.” I pulled on his hands. I was strong; he was stronger. So I hit him with a faceful of fairy dust, and whispered, “Stop.”

He did.

Sawyer shoved him off and stood.

“What’d you do that for?” Jimmy wiped the sticky sparkles from his eyes. “And why’d it work?”

“He’s—” I paused. What Sawyer was had always been a mystery.

“I’m one of you,” Sawyer finished.

“No way in hell,” Jimmy returned as he climbed to his feet.

“Her magic made you stop. Would it have if I were evil? If you were actually supposed to kill me? Not that you could, but if I have to keep flicking you off, I might hurt you.”

“Nothing can hurt me.”

“Wanna bet?”

“Let’s see what you got.”

“No.” I stepped between them again, setting one hand on Jimmy’s chest, ignoring the dual sensations of “ick” from all the blood and “yum” from all the muscles. “He’s dangerous.

Jimmy lifted his chin. “So am I.”

“Not like him.”

Jimmy stared Sawyer up and down—which was pretty easy considering he still wore nothing but tattoos—sneering a bit at the snake inked on his penis. “Is that a joke?” he asked.

Sawyer smirked.

“He’s a skinwalker,” I repeated.

“A shifter. So what?”

“If he was just a shifter, he’d be ashes. He can change into anything with the use of his robe.”

“Robe?” Jimmy gave Sawyer another scornful once over. “Did it burn off?”

“My skin is my robe,” Sawyer murmured. And he could become any of the beasts that he wore there.

“He was created in fire, birthed of smoke,” I continued. “He controls the lightning. He can bring the storm.”

“How do we kill him?” Jimmy asked.

“He’s one of the most powerful sorcerers ever known. There is no killing him.”

Jimmy’s eyes widened. “Everything that breathes can die.”

“Everything but him.”

“Why would Ruthie—” he began.

“She didn’t,” Sawyer interrupted. “This was your test, boy. You failed.”

“Failed?” Jimmy waved at Sawyer’s still-bloody chest. “I got you.”

“Not as good as I got you.”

Honestly. I gave a mental eye roll. Men. Boys. Ancient supernatural creatures. The only difference was the size of their—

Jimmy’s switchblade suddenly appeared once more in his hand. He must have palmed it while still on the ground. I was impressed. Annoyed as hell. But also impressed.

He flicked his wrist, and the dying sun sparked off the edge as it opened. “Let’s go again.”

“No,” I said, and when Jimmy moved, I growled, the sound surprising him enough to make him pause. “Do
not
make me spray you.”

“You’re taking his side?”

“We’re on the
same
side.”

“If that’s true, then why were all those people…” Jimmy curled his lip, “
his
people, roasting him? He must have done something to set them off.”

“It makes them feel better to burn me every generation or so.” Sawyer shrugged. “I let them.”

“You
let
them?” Jimmy snorted. “Sure you did.”

“You think mere humans could capture me?” Sawyer gave a delicate snort of his own. “They’ve seen me become my animals, watched me turn humans to ashes—”

“Why did they see you?”

Sawyer spread his hands. “Why not?”

“It adds to his legend,” I said. “Makes people fear him. Probably
keeps
them from burning him more than once a generation.”

“When they watch me
die,
then they see me a day, a week, a month later unharmed…” Sawyer didn’t exactly grin—I doubt he could—but his oddly light gray eyes sparkled. “It’s one of the few things that amuses me after all these years.”

“How many years?” Jimmy asked suspiciously.

“Sawyer’s as old as I am,” I said. “Maybe older.”

“This is
Sawyer
?”

Something in Jimmy’s voice made me turn, but he was already past me. I should have taken away that damn knife when I had the chance.

The blade descended, headed straight for Sawyer’s eye, but while Jimmy was fast, Sawyer was faster, and he snatched Jimmy’s wrist, giving it a quick, vicious twist. The sound of the bone snapping warred with the thud of the knife against the ground and my own startled gasp.