Doomsday Can Wait (Phoenix Chronicles, #2)(13)

I laughed, so did Summer. Dr. Gray did not.

"What's the FBI's interest in Barnaby's Gap?" he asked. "No one's been killed, so we aren't talking psycho or serial."

Summer's fingers twitched. She wanted to blast him, but she needed more information first. "Can you tell us where this creature has been sighted?"

"The caves." He walked to the window, pointed at the nearest, tree-covered peak. "West side of the ridge. Folks have been talking about going up, shooting anything that moves. I don't think that's a good idea."

I didn't, either, since shooting would probably just piss him off.

Jimmy could heal any wound, unless someone just happened to hit him with two bullets in the exact same place—and that place had to be a kill shot.

The only way for that to happen would be to get close enough to put a gun to his head or his chest and pop him twice. Jimmy might not be himself, but that didn't mean he would let anyone with a gun come near him, even me.

"Legends say that to kill a howler you have to remove the head while it's still alive." The doctor let out a short, sharp laugh. "I've been trying to figure out how—"

Jazzy floating sparkles shot past my face and rained down on Dr. Gray, stopping him mid-conjecture. He continued to stare at the distant mountains as if we were no longer there. To him, we probably weren't.

The inner door opened, and Summer flipped a hand over her shoulder, catching the assistant full in the face as he came into the room.

We slipped out without saying good-bye. I didn't think we'd be considered rude since they'd both already forgotten who we were or that they'd ever spoken to us in the first place. We made our way back to the Impala.

"You drive," Summer said.

She didn't have to tell me twice. I leaped behind the wheel, fired her up, and drove away. Summer lifted her hands over her head. Fairy dust streamed down the center of town, swirling into doorways, dancing down the chimneys and through the open windows.

"That power is very handy," I murmured.

"Forget it." Summer placed her hands in her lap, kneading her fingers as if they ached. "I don't swing that way."

For a second I didn't know what she meant. When it became clear, my face heated.

Not only was I psychometric with latent channeling abilities—I saw dead people, or at least Ruthie—I was also an empath. The common-variety empath feels what another person feels; they empathize. Of course I was not the common-variety anything. Instead I absorbed supernatural abilities through sex.

Yeah, I hadn't been too happy about it, either.

"If you want the power so badly," Summer continued, "and I can see why you might, I know someone who could help you."

"Someone..." I began.

"Male."

"A male fairy?"

"You think fairies are only female?" Summer reached for her cell phone. "I'll call him. He wouldn't mind."

"I would." I stayed her hand. She peered at me, confused. "Just because I can absorb powers doesn't mean I should."

"Then why have the talent?"

"It's the only way we can win."

I was going to need to be stronger than what I was to keep the Nephilim from overpowering the earth. Just being psychic wasn't good enough. It certainly hadn't been for Ruthie.

Nevertheless, I balked at blatantly screwing every breed I could find. And I'd been warned never to have sex with a Nephilim. I might absorb their evil as well as their strength. No one really knew how my empathy worked, and I wasn't willing to take the chance and wind up batting for the other side.

I'd made a vow to myself that I'd only absorb powers that were absolutely necessary. I'd kind of hoped I wouldn't need any more. Sure, that hope was far-fetched, but what hope wasn't?

The highway curved upward, and we began the ascent to the top of the ridge where I assumed there'd be a sign: this way to the creepy caverns.

"I imagine everyone in Barnaby's Gap is going to forget we ever rolled through?"

Summer nodded, still kneading her hands. "Along with anything spooky in the hills."

"What if someone was out of town for the day? On vacation? Just couldn't take Hicksville one more second?"

"If no one else remembers, they'll forget eventually, too. It's the nature of the human mind to rationalize."

"What happens in the places you don't go?" I wondered. "Jimmy doesn't have forget-me talents."

Because if he did, I'd have them, too.

"Like I said, people rationalize. Once the threat is gone, the memories fade, especially when those memories are so hard to believe in the first place. They'll start to think they had a nightmare, a fever."

"An entire town will rationalize away mass murder by monster?"

"Mass murder doesn't happen." I flinched, and she corrected herself. "Much."

I'd seen mass murder, been too late to prevent it, and was still haunted by the images nearly every time I closed my eyes.

"DKs are sent at the first hint of a problem," Summer continued, "if not earlier. The federation's goal is to stop the Nephilim before they cause death and destruction. Why else would all our seers be psychics?"