Doomsday Can Wait (Phoenix Chronicles, #2)(19)

"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 was 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 hun-dred 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 Man-hattan.

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.