Any Given Doomsday (32 page)

His fingers clenched in my hair, then released just as quickly. He didn’t want me to stop, didn’t want me to slow. He wanted this, and he wanted it my way.

Increase the rhythm, the pressure, a scrape of the teeth, so close, a few more strokes and he’d be mine.

But he wouldn’t give in; he wouldn’t give it up. Instead he entangled our legs and did some fancy wrestling move, flipping me onto my back and sliding between my thighs.

“Hey.” My protest was cut short by his mouth. He kissed me as if he wanted to crawl inside me forever. He hadn’t kissed me like that since we were seventeen.

The memory made my eyes sting, and I nearly panicked. I couldn’t lose control. I had to keep trying to reach him, and the only way to do that was to let him in completely, to become as captured by the past overwhelming the present as I wanted him to be.

Our lips fit together like the last two pieces of a puzzle; our tongues met like rain across a wind-washed desert—moisture and heat, desperation, salvation.

“Touch me,” I said.

Love me
, I thought.

We kissed for what seemed like hours; maybe it was. I’d never gotten tired of kissing him back then. Sometimes that was all that we’d had.

They say you never forget your first love or your first time. When they’re one and the same, you dream of it, dream of him, for years, maybe forever. I don’t know.

Now I had him in my arms again. His mouth on mine, his hands, both rough and gentle, wandered everywhere. I needed him inside me. I had to see if the dreams were even close to the reality.

I opened myself, welcomed him in, the slick slide, the way that he filled me, familiar. Though I no longer recognized him in the light, I knew him in the dark. There he wasn’t a monster. There he was only a man.

He leaned his forehead against mine, took a deep breath as if to speak.

“Don’t talk.” I crushed any words with my mouth.

Oh, God, please don’t talk.

We continued to kiss; I wouldn’t let him go. With one hand at the nape of his neck I held him to me, the other at his hip showed him the rhythm. Slow and deep; I didn’t want it to end. Not yet. As long as we were like this, in the dark, the bad things couldn’t reach us. I was still me; Jimmy was still Jimmy; we were together again as if we’d never been apart.

But nothing good lasts forever. I knew that as well as anyone, probably better.

I pulled him to me too fast, let him in too far, and he tensed, his whole body straining to hold back, but he was unable to.

Once he lost control, so did I. The waves of sensation washed over us both. He plunged in one last time and stilled. The tiny movement, the release so deep within, made me gasp and wrap my legs around him, tilting upward, trying to draw him closer. It had always been like this—never long enough, never deep enough, never, ever enough.

His mouth left mine, trailing over my chin, down my neck to my breast where he gently kissed first one slope and then the other as the last shivers died away.

My chest ached from holding in what I felt. How could he touch me like that and not feel it too?

We’d made love like this half a dozen times before, and every time we’d lain in the same way afterward. His mouth at my breast, tracing the fine blue lines with his tongue, my fingers caressing his face, his back, his arms.

We’d whisper secrets, dream of the future, profess a love that would last forever. I’d believed it then; I believed it again now.

His breath on my neck was soft as he nuzzled me, but his tongue was hard, insistent, as he traced first the hoi-low and then the slope. My nipples tightened. I still wanted him.

I lifted my arms, tilted my head, arched, and he grew hard again while still inside me. I knew that I’d reached him, that he would come back to me. Together we’d escape. We’d save the world, exact vengeance for Ruthie.

“Jimmy.” I put all the love, all the trust, into the response of my body and the whisper of my voice. With that one word I asked him for the truth.

He answered by sinking his fangs into my neck.

Chapter 38

The arch of my body went from pleasure to pain. I tensed, tightened, gasped, and I swear as he began to suckle my neck, he came again in a rush that made me dizzy.

Or maybe that was just blood loss. He
was
sucking on me like a dehydrated kid with a straw.

I would have fought back, but I couldn’t move. The first strike of his fangs had paralyzed me.

The betrayal was almost more than I could bear. He could have drunk from me the first time we’d been together, I’d expected him to, but he’d waited until I was at my most vulnerable. Then he’d struck like the evil thing that he was.

My hands fell away from his neck; my body went limp as my eyes fluttered closed. I could see us below me, as if I floated somewhere near the ceiling.

My eyes weren’t closed but wide open and staring. I tilted my head. I looked a little dead.

From this angle, with his mouth at my neck, our legs entwined, his body growing slack within mine, the view was quite pornographic. If I weren’t careful I’d end up starring in one of the videos on the huge wide screen in the living room.

Aw, hell, was I already? I wouldn’t put it past them.

I continued to watch, both fascinated and repelled as he drank from me. His back was so beautiful, all muscles and sleek, tanned skin. I reached out to touch, but I didn’t have an arm. My arm was on the bed with the rest of me.

I’d given him my heart, my soul, my body, and when I’d trusted him the most, he’d hurt me.

Talk about deja vu.

I forced my attention back to us. I was getting pretty pale. He needed to stop that before he—

I went dizzy again. The world spun, and I fell from the ceiling, slamming back into myself with a thud and a gasp.

Jimmy lifted his head, but before I could see his face, his eyes, his no doubt blood-drenched lips, everything went blessedly black.

I dreamed of New Mexico. Oh, come on! Why there?

“Is this hell?” I asked.

“Hardly.” I’d know that deep, mesmerizing voice anywhere, even without the hogan, the bonfire, the sweat lodge, the ramada that seemed to rise straight out of the ground in front of me. The mountains were there too, looming shadows stretching into an everlasting sky.

Sawyer stepped out of the night. Naked, with the moon cascading over his skin, turning his tattoos an eerie midnight blue.

“You dream, Phoenix.”

“Get the hell out of my head.”

“I’m not in your head, you’re in mine.”

“Sheesh. Sleeping with you was like a virus. What else did I catch?”

His lips compressed into a flat, thin line. “You didn’t catch it from me.”

“I had it all along?”

“No.”

Jimmy. Hell.

“You
had
to sleep with him?” Sawyer asked.

“Yeah, I kind of did.”

Sawyer’s gaze touched my face, then darkened. “I will kill him.”

“The line starts behind me.”

Silence fell between us. The only sound was the crackling of the bonfire.

“He kept his dream walker power a secret from us all,” Sawyer said. “If I’d known, I would have figured out how the Nephilim had gotten their information and staked him twice when I had the chance.”

“What?”

“Only Ruthie knew the names of all the DKs and seers,” he said slowly, and the light dawned.

“He walked in her dreams.”

Sawyer nodded once.

“She didn’t know?”

“A dream walker can wipe all trace of the walk from the victim’s head. At the least, the person might remember dreaming of them, but not what the dream was about.” He spread his hands. “Happens to all of us.”

More than I liked. Especially now that I knew someone might have been trolling the halls of my mind while I slept.

“Jimmy didn’t know he was doing it,” I said.

“No?”

“No. His father, the Strega, said that once he and Jimmy exchanged blood”—Sawyer made a face; I had to agree with the sentiment—”then Jimmy’s vampire nature emerged and he changed sides.”

“You believe this?”

I shouldn’t believe anything the strega, or Jimmy, for that matter, said. Except—

Quickly I told Sawyer about absorbing Jimmy’s dhampir powers, but not his vampire nature, which led me to believe that in order to attain a taste for blood I’d have to actually… taste blood.

“Also, if Jimmy was on the Strega’s team all along he would have killed me, you, Summer, hell, everyone he could. Why wait?”

Sawyer nodded thoughtfully. “I agree. Somehow the strega was able to entice Sanducci to dream-walk and pluck the information from Ruthie before she died without Sanducci knowing it. Perhaps the spell you saw in your vision—the bowl of blood—had something to do with it.”

I recalled the strega saying he’d done everything to get into Jimmy’s head—spells and charms—but nothing helped. He never had revealed just what had given him the access he needed to set doomsday in motion.

“How does the dream walker power work?” I asked.

“You must go into a deep trance, access the realm between life and death, where dreams exist; then you can walk among them.”

“I wouldn’t know a trance if it bit me on the ass.”

“It bit you, all right. Tonight, Sanducci nearly killed you.”

“That’s how I got here?” Sawyer nodded. “Next time I’ll take the bus.”

I paused as several separate thoughts suddenly collided to provide a single answer. “Jimmy said he’d been sick. The worst he could ever remember. The strega was trying for years to get into Jimmy’s head and couldn’t.”

Sawyer’s face smoothed out in understanding. “None of his magic worked, but when Sanducci became ill, he existed in the realm of the dream walker. The Strega was able to get past his defenses, then somehow entice him to walk in Ruthie’s head where every bit of information he needed was there for the taking.”

“Even so, Jimmy wouldn’t have told him the information. Not then anyway.”

“I’m sure it was a simple matter to draw what he wanted from Sanducci when he was still too ill to know what he was doing. The strega is, after all, a very powerful witch.”

In the end. it didn’t really matter how the strega had gotten his information; what mattered was that he had it and he was using it.

“So,” I continued, “why your dreams?”

Those tight lips curved. “Yes, Phoenix, why mine?”

“Because you know so damn much about every damn thing?”

“Testy?”

“Do you know where I am? Do you know what’s been going on?”

“Yes.”

“And why is that?” I considered. “Summer’s a tattle-tale.”

“She did her job.”

“But she didn’t know exactly where I’d gone. Neither did you. 1 only said New York and it’s a big city. Come clean, Sawyer. You put a transmitter on me or something?”

“Something.” For an instant I thought he meant to leave the explanation at that, but he continued. “The turquoise is more than just protection from a chindi, it’s a connection between us.”

I scowled. “I never realized you were a Peeping Tom.”

“There’s a lot about me you don’t realize,” he said, unfazed as always by my scorn. “We’ve been trying to help you, but we can’t get in. Several have died trying.”

“Don’t try anymore.”

“It’s pointless. You’ll have to do this on your own.”

“I’m used to it. So, tell me, why your dreams?”

“Dream walkers are drawn to the dreams of the one who knows the answer to their most desperate question. It’s the way this power works.”

“The only thing that would come in handy right now is how to kill a Strega, but you didn’t know—”

He moved forward, holding out his hands for mine. “Ever since you left, I’ve been searching for the answer.”

My heart jittered. “Did you find one?”

“Touch me and you’ll see.”

I didn’t hesitate, just slapped our palms together and braced for the ride.

The wind hit me like a tornado. I suddenly flew through dark, twisted corridors. Discarded toys, books, papers littered the floor. Doors whooshed by, some had locks, some stood half open, some were torn asunder as if by a huge, supernatural hand.

I came to a stop so fast I stumbled into the door in front of me. Ancient and cracked, the rusted hinges swung inward with an eerie creak.

I stepped inside. Sawyer’s voice whispered out of the shadows. “Only blood of his blood will doom a Strega.”

“Could you be a little more specific?”

I guess the answer was no since I was yanked backward out of the door and into the corridor, where my speed increased until my stomach lurched with a pain reminiscent of carsickness.

Heat brushed my face where before there’d been only a chill; I opened my eyes and together Sawyer and I swayed.

“I’ve never liked it when people walk in my head,” Sawyer muttered.

“Who would?”

“Exactly.” Sawyer withdrew his hands from mine and put them behind his back as if to keep me from holding them again. “Remember that,” he continued, “and use the power accordingly.”

“I didn’t mean to use it at all.”

“Though dangerous, dream-walking is a beneficial talent to have, especially for a seer, but you’ll have to learn to control it.”

“I’ll put that on my to-do list: don’t die, escape evil lair, save the world, learn how to control dream-walking.”

He didn’t react, which made sarcasm no fun at all.

“What did you learn?”

“Only blood of his blood will doom a Strega.”

“Sanducci,” Sawyer said. “He’s blood of the Strega’s blood, his son. He’s the only one who can do it.”

I made a choked sound—half laughter, half disbelief. “That’ll never happen.”

“You’re probably right.”

“A little encouragement would be nice. Maybe some hints.”

Sawyer closed his eyes, breathed in deeply, and when he breathed out, a scalding wind blew across the desert. “Remember all that you have become; take stock of everything available to you. Think of all you have learned, all you have heard.” His eyes snapped open, boring into mine, and the wind died. “Do it quickly. Our time is almost out.”

“Terrific.”

His voice lowered. “You nearly died tonight. Quit baiting Sanducci. If you, keep trying to make him remember the life he had that’s gone, he
will
kill you before you can kill him.”