Apocalypse Happens (16 page)

I zipped the duffel and took it with me when I left the room. I wasn’t staying, though I wasn’t sure yet where I needed to go.

Luther wasn’t in the hallway, and for an instant I panicked until I heard someone moving around in the kitchen. I went to the doorway and watched the kid pilfer through the cabinets for food.

“I told you to stay.”

He turned with a bag of chips clutched between long, dark fingers. “I’m not a dog.”

No, he was a teenage boy with more power than was good for him. I’d left him with Sawyer and Summer because they were the best choice at the time, but now—

“You’re going to have to come with me.”

“Not.”

I blinked. “I can’t leave you here alone.”

“I’ve been alone most of my life. Believe me, this”—he spread his arms wide, the bag of Ruffles swinging merrily—“is easy street. Ain’t nothin’ round here that can do me any harm.”

“Listen—”

“No,” he snapped. “I’m waiting for Summer. She’ll come looking for me here when she—”

My eyes narrowed. “When she what? Do you know where she is?”

Luther shook his head, and his kinky golden-brown locks jiggled. Funny, but suddenly I didn’t trust the kid at all.

So I reached out and touched him, but I didn’t see what I thought I would. With my gift, that happened a lot.

I couldn’t read minds; more’s the pity. Sure, when I
touched people, and un-people too, I saw things—where they’d been, what they’d done—but I couldn’t see everything.

Situations that packed strong emotions—love, hate, joy, terror—came through the quickest and the strongest. Often, if I asked a question, then followed up with a brush of my hand, I could “hear” the answer.

But not today.

With the kid I didn’t see Summer. Instead I got slammed with his memory of the fight with the lion man.

Luther training in the desert, running, rolling, kicking, jumping. Suddenly he pauses as the wind rustles his hair and Ruthie’s voice whispers,
Barbas
.

I’d believed the man who’d invaded my shower had been a lion shifter, but there was more than one kind. That he’d been the same kind that had killed Luther’s parents, the same kind as Luther’s mother, was not a coincidence. Not in my world.

The memory continued to play out, and as long as Luther let me I continued to watch.

The roar of the barbas splits the suddenly still air. Luther’s eyes flare from hazel to gold. His head turns toward Sawyer’s house as the man emerges, already shedding his clothes and shifting to his true form.

I expect Luther to grab a knife, a spear, preferably a gun, and take out this guy. Instead, Luther strips too, and then he shifts.

They come at each other just like the lions on
Wild Kingdom
. Fast and furious, all snarls and claws and teeth. Blood and spittle fly. Horrible gashes open in their sides; chunks of fur and flesh thunk against the ground.

I yanked my hand from Luther’s arm and lifted my gaze to his.

Luther’s eyes, ancient despite the youth of his face, stared into mine. For an instant they flared gold, and the lion inside peered out. “Seen enough?”

His voice was a rumble—part beast and part man. I blinked, and he was just a kid again. Tall, gangly, he gave the appearance of being too awkward to do much but trip over his own massive feet. But I’d seen him fight in human form, and that appearance was deceiving.

“You could have shot him,” I murmured. “Silver plus shifter equals ashes.”

“Not with a barbas. I’m surprised you don’t know this.”

“I’ve been a little busy,” I muttered, but he was right. It was my job to know. The instant I’d heard the word “barbas” the first time, I should have found out how to kill one. “Clue me in.”

For an instant I thought he might refuse. Since I’d returned from LA, he was behaving as if he could barely stand the sight of me, as if he trusted me even less than a stranger. I couldn’t blame him. He’d been there before Sawyer and Jimmy had managed to cage the new and not-so-improved me behind my fancy jeweled collar. It hadn’t been pretty.

The kid reached into his pocket and pulled out a white flower with a few crumpled green leaves attached. “Hellebore.” At my frown he continued. “A plant used in witchcraft to invoke demons. Specifically demons of Barbas.”

“You brought that thing here on purpose?” My voice rose, cracking on the last word.

“You think I was out there?” He flung his long arm and nearly clipped me in the nose with one huge hand. “All alone? Just for fun?”

I didn’t know what to think. “Why would you—?”

“It’s better to face them on my terms. Right here. When I’m ready for them, one at a time, rather than have them sneak up on me in a group.”

The words
like they snuck up on my parents
were left unsaid.

I digested that for a second. I liked this scenario a whole lot better than the one where the barbas had somehow found Luther at Sawyer’s compound. This place was supposed to be shielded from prying eyes by Sawyer’s magic.

I let out the breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding on a long, relieved sigh.

“They’ve been searching for me all along.”

My breath stuck in my chest again. “Excuse me?”

“I’ve always known it.” He shoved the hellebore back into his pocket. “I always felt stalked. When the feeling got to be too much, I’d run. Thought I was paranoid, but like they say, you aren’t paranoid if they’re really after you.”

“Why are
they
after you?”

“I didn’t ask. Don’t care. They killed my family. They die. End of story.”

He sounded so much like Jimmy my mouth fell open. If the kid continued to lure in demons and dust them with ease, he’d
be
another Jimmy—the best demon killer in the federation. Which wasn’t such a bad thing considering how short my list of available demon killers had become.

“Now that I know what they are,” Luther continued, “that I’m not crazy when I feel evil, when I see things, hear things, now that I know how to kill them . . .” His eyes flared golden fury once more. “I plan to.”

He lifted his chin as if he expected me to argue. I didn’t. The idea of sending him out alone was hard to swallow, but I’d swallow it. I had to.

Besides, the kid had Ruthie now. Theoretically, I was in more danger than he was.

“So you lured him in with hellebore?” Luther nodded. “But how’d you kill him?”

Luther grinned. He was going to be so handsome—if he lived long enough. “Not only does hellebore bring them forth, but if you use it right, damn stuff kills them.”

“How do we”—I made quotation marks in the air with my fingers—“ ‘use it right’?”

“Boil the plant in oil, then dip the tip of a weapon into the juice. Pow!” He slammed a massive fist into an equally large palm, then flipped his hands outward. “Whoosh.”

“Where’d you discover this info?”

There was a brand-new federation database where DKs and seers could enter what they’d learned about the Nephilim from their personal encounters. But I couldn’t recall giving Luther the code.

“Sawyer,” he said shortly.

“Hmm,” I murmured. I wasn’t surprised. “You know where he is?”

The kid frowned. “I thought he was with you.”

“There’s a lot of that going around.”

“Huh?”

“Never mind. So, to be clear, you dipped a weapon in boiled hellebore oil. What weapon?”

Luther’s smile was thin and just a little scary. “Me.”

CHAPTER 16

I’d been looking toward the mountain, wondering if, perhaps, Sawyer was still up there, but at the kid’s words I looked right back. “Say what?”

“The spell required a weapon of fury coated in hellebore.”

“A weapon of fury could be anything.”

“In this case, that weapon was me. I rubbed hellebore all over my body.”

“Dammit, Luther!” I clenched my hands to keep from throttling the kid. “You could have been killed.”

“I wasn’t.”

“Don’t do that again.”

His expression became mulish—a quick switch from strong, able man to sulky little boy. “I’ll do whatever I have to. Seems to me it’s a lot safer to take a bath in hellebore than to coat some weapon and hope like hell you’ve got that weapon at hand
if
a barbas shows up. This way, I’m always ready.”

The kid thought like me, which made it hard to argue with him. Knowing that he was protected the next time a barbas tried to kill him took a small portion of the load off my heavily overloaded mind.

“It would be good to know why they keep coming after you,” I murmured.

“Does it matter?”

“Maybe. Seems their time would be better spent wreaking havoc wherever they can like the rest of the Nephilim. That they’re obsessed with you is . . . disturbing.” To say the least.

“They killed my parents”—Luther shrugged—“but they never found me. Maybe they just can’t let it go.”

“So they keep searching for the next fifteen years? Awful long attention span for a kitty cat.” I thought back to my short encounter with the lion man, and I tilted my head as I heard again his heavily accented voice. “He was African.”

Luther snorted. “Why? Because he was black?”

“He had an accent. He said, ‘Where is de boy?’ ”

The sudden shift in expression on Luther’s face made me pause and ask, “What?”

“Just like that?” he asked. “He sounded
just
like that?”

“Yeah,” I said slowly. “Why?”

“My mother had an accent. She was from Kenya.” His lips curved into a small sad smile as his eyes gazed toward the mountain. “She would walk in the house, and she would call, ‘Where is de boy?’ and I would come running.”

My eyes got a little misty at that picture. I’d never had a mother—at least one I remembered. By the time Ruthie had taken me in, I’d been far too old to come running and she’d had far too many children in her care to call.

You’d think I’d have flashes of someone—a hazy, ghostly face in the night, a cool hand on my brow, the echo of a voice, a scent that brought back . . . anything—but I didn’t. Before the first foster home there was only a great black void, one I often wished had reached forward
to encompass several of the places I’d lived thereafter.

“You’re saying the man who came searching had the same accent as your mother?” I clarified.

“Since I didn’t hear him say anything but—” He opened his mouth and roared so loudly if I were a cartoon I’d have been blown back three feet by the current, then shrugged. “Got me.”

As I’d thought before, it was too damn coincidental that a cadre of barbases had killed Luther’s parents and one had shown up here. Even if Luther had called the thing in, from its question to me in the shower, the barbas had been looking for the kid, and as the boy had pointed out, you aren’t paranoid if they’re really after you.

“Relatives?” I mused.

“Of my mother?” At first Luther appeared intrigued, until he realized that though he might have gained family, that family wanted him dead.

I remembered when I first realized that people—things, demons, whatever—I’d never met and hadn’t personally hurt wanted to kill me. It took a little getting used to. Luther got over it a lot quicker than I had.

His face hardened; he lifted his chin and murmured, “Gonna dust every last one of the bastards.”

“That’s my boy.”

“I’m not your boy.”

The kid still didn’t trust me, and I couldn’t blame him. Without this collar, I’d want to kill him too. Without this collar, I’d probably do worse than kill him for a long, long time.

And wouldn’t that be funnnnn?
the demon whispered.

I shivered. I hated this thing inside of me. That I’d
sent Jimmy to have his released only made me hate myself nearly as much.

I ignored Luther’s jab. What choice did I have? Pointing out that he
was
my boy, as in under my command in Armageddon’s Army, would only force another confrontation about having lost my connection to the army’s true general. Since I needed that connection now, pissing off the conduit wasn’t advisable.

Hey, I
could
be taught!

“Can you bring Ruthie?” I asked.

Luther frowned. “Now?”

“No, I thought maybe next Friday. After we’re all dead.”

“You don’t have to be bitchy about it,” he murmured.

“Obviously you don’t know me very well at all.”

His lips curved just a little. “I’ve never tried to
bring
her. She’s always just—”

“There,” I finished.

“Yeah.”

Boy, I wished she were just “there” for me right now.

“Close your eyes and—”

“Open,” Luther interrupted. “I know.”

Considering he’d been working with Sawyer for several weeks, I was certain he did. Sawyer was big on being open. Which was downright hysterical considering how “closed” the man was.

Luther shut his eyes, took a deep breath, let it out and waited. I stood helpless, able only to watch, to hope and pray that he’d succeed, but also kind of hoping he didn’t. I’d been able to reach Ruthie solely in my dreams. I couldn’t call her up on a whim no matter how much I might have wanted to.

Time passed. I sighed, shuffled, opened my mouth
to tell the kid to forget it, he’d tried, but then his eyelids fluttered, opened, and the eyes that stared back at me were no longer hazel but a deep woodsy brown.

My lips tightened; I glanced away. “Overachiever,” I muttered.

“Lizbeth,” Ruthie’s voice came out of Luther’s mouth, sweet and gentle as a spring rain at dawn. “Jealousy don’t help anyone.”

I shrugged. “I’m supposed to be the most powerful seer in centuries, but I can’t
see
anymore, and I could never bring you like he can.”

“We all have our talents, child. Right now yours are in a different area.”

“Will I ever be a seer again?” I asked, my voice so wistful it surprised me.

In the past, all I’d wanted was to be normal, for God to take away the psychometric gift I’d been born with. Then Ruthie had given me
her
gift, and I’d wished that away too. Now that gift was gone, and I ached to have it back again.

“Time will tell,” Ruthie murmured.