Doomsday Can Wait (Phoenix Chronicles, #2)(26)

I'd been concerned that I wouldn't be able to shoot with sufficient speed or accuracy to kill all the luceres. But now that Sawyer was here . ..

I’llblast them as they come out of the window. Any that I miss . . .

Sawyer's gaze swung toward the nearby community center, his strangely light gray eyes assessing the layout. I won't.

I had no worries that he wouldn't be able to handle himself. I'd seen Sawyer fight a pack of coyotes once, with a little help from me. He knew exactly what to do when he was outnumbered. The luceres wouldn't stand a chance.

Nearby, a dog began to bark frantically. Several others joined in, and the ruff on the back of my neck stood up. Domestic animals go ballistic in the presence of shape-shifters. They sense our otherness.



They can smell us, I thought.

Sawyer appeared at my side; he lifted his snout, and his fur ruffled. The breeze is blowing in our direction.

Which meant the dogs had caught wind of something arriving from the opposite end of Lake Vista.

I caught a whiff of something myself—human with just a dash of beast, the scent of skin with a touch of ozone.

Though I should have shifted back, get dressed, move my ass. I wanted to see them. I needed to know.

With the superior eyesight of my wolf form, I detected a hint of movement. A line of people walked right down the center of the suburban street. Shoulder to shoulder they came, looking like gunslingers in an old Western. Tombstone by way of the Land of Lincoln.

They obviously had no fear of being seen, of being asked what they were doing, why they were here. They believed they would own this town, and even if someone saw them, questioned them, tried to stop them, it wouldn't matter. They'd be killing every living soul soon enough.

I hadn't realized I'd moved toward the Impala, that I'd reached for my human form and become me again until the breeze brushed across skin instead of fur and made me shiver.

Quickly I dressed and moved into position. Sawyer glided past me as the luceres disappeared into the community center. I lifted the first arrow and fitted it into the crossbow. Sawyer sank onto his belly and wiggled through the long grass until he lurked right next to the building.

Darkness fell; candles flickered on the other side of the window. I swore I could hear the low-voiced chants from within. Maybe it was just a sliver of memory from my vision, probably it was the increase in my senses from the absorption of either Jimmy's or Sawyer's powers.

A sudden flare of light and color to the east was followed by the soft pop of the gunpowder, and the first lucere burst through the window in a shower of glass.

Though I was now in human form, and my eyesight was not as good as it had been when I was a wolf, it was still better than most. I could see the dark shadow of the lucere arching toward the ground.

I lit the arrow, let it fly, enjoyed the trail of orange cutting through the night, followed by a soft thunk and then a burst of gray-black ash sprinkling over the grass as the lucere disappeared from this world forever.

Another came through the window, hitting the ground and loping off toward the houses before I could grab a second arrow. Sawyer sprang out of the tall grass, a low blurry shape that moved so quickly he seemed to vanish from one place and reappear in another.

He landed on the back of the lucere and knocked it to the ground. I couldn't see what he was doing, I could only hear the snarling, the growling, then the yelping. Since Sawyer would never yelp, I murmured, "Two down," and fit another arrow into my bow. I lifted the weapon to fire and nearly dropped everything.

Between me and the community center, a column of smoke swirled, faster and faster, until I could no longer follow the morph from wisp to woman.

Suddenly she was there, solid and deadly. Her smile said she'd won even before the battle had begun. It didn't take me long to realize why.

The turquoise was no longer around my neck. Instead, it hung over the rearview mirror of the Impala, where I'd placed it before I'd shape-shifted, then left it forgotten in my hurry to shift back.

No wonder she was smiling. The woman of smoke had been waiting for this.

I loosed the burning arrow. Couldn't hurt. Maybe I'd actually have my first piece of incredible luck, and she'd burst into flames, dying in agony as I roasted marshmal-lows over her corpse.

I should have known better. Any luck I had was usu-ally bad.

With the speed she'd shown when she'd snatched my knife at Murphy's, the woman of smoke plucked the ar-row out of the air and tossed it to the side. The long, dry summer grass began to smolder.

"Uh-oh."

Luceres tumbled out of the window, ran toward the houses. As far as I could tell, Sawyer was still messing with the first one.

"Sawyer!" I shouted, but the woman of smoke lifted her hand like a crossing guard stopping traffic, and the word was flung back down my throat, the sound never reaching the air.

As she stalked toward me, an ice-cold wind that smelled of brimstone singed my nostrils, making my eyes water. I'd never smelled brimstone, but what else could it have been? The scent was hell unleashed, fire, ashes, death, all that was evil, the end of the world come upon us.

I coughed, choked; tears streamed down my face. Then I reached for my knife—at least I'd remembered to lace that back around my waist—but before I could pull it from the sheath her hand closed about my wrist.

Wherever her fingers touched my skin it sizzled, but not with heat, with cold. The sensation reminded me of the pain that followed near frostbite, the aching, the burning, the tingling that occurred when frozen flesh began to warm.