Doomsday Can Wait (Phoenix Chronicles, #2)(29)

"Is there a good and a bad of everything?" I asked.

"Life craves balance," Ruthie answered. "We wouldn't have devils if we hadn't had angels first."

"Then it follows that we should have enough seers and DKs to fight the Nephilim. Otherwise things are out of balance."

"Lack of balance is what the Nephilim crave. It creates chaos. We need to find more soldiers, and we need to train them. Which isn't gonna be easy when we're also fightin' Nephilim with the few we have left."

"So what do we do? What do I do?"

"Lead them."

"That is so not helpful."

Ruthie's lips curved. "You're on the right track. Get Jimmy back; he's the best soldier you've got. Summer ain't bad, either. Have Sawyer search out new federation members, those who don't know yet what to do with their powers, and have him show them."

"Sawyer?"

"He's always been very good at finding new seers. DK.s, too. Though usually seers draw their own DKs to them."

"Unless they inherit them." As I had.

"Unless," Ruthie agreed. "You need to gather the ones in hiding, keep fightin' at their side. It's all you can do."

"It would be nice if Sawyer could walk on two legs and use his words anywhere but on Navajo land," I murmured.

His going to the new recruits and training them ASAP would be more practical than his having to find them by osmosis, draw them to New Mexico, and then deal with them there.

"Take Sawyer with you to Detroit," Ruthie ordered. "It's dangerous."

I wondered if she meant dangerous because it was Detroit or dangerous because of the benandanti and other assorted supernatural beings, then decided it didn't matter. Dangerous was dangerous, and Sawyer was the best bodyguard, even if I couldn't get him on a plane without a wire cage and a muzzle.

Luckily I had the Impala, and Detroit was a short, but extremely annoying, trip around the tip of Lake Michigan from Chicago. We'd be there by morning.

The laughter of the children drew my attention to the window once more. Seven kids now. Where had they been hiding?

I got up and moved closer, peering through the glass. Between one blink and the next, there were eight kids.

"Son of a—" I murmured, as understanding dawned.

The children hadn't been playing hide-and-seek; they'd been appearing—bing, bing, bing—as they died one by one in Lake Vista.





CHAPTER 12


"People are being killed." I spun away from the window to face Ruthie. "And we're chatting in a sunny kitchen?"

Ruthie's eyes were moist. "You think I want them to die? You think I like having a full house?"

I threw up my hands. "I don't know what you want or what I think. I only know that people, children, are dying by lucere attack. An attack I was sent to stop."

"But you went down in the field."

"According to you, I'm not dead yet."

"You needed time to heal." Ruthie's gaze became unfocused as she stared past me. "Sawyer's done all he can."

"Did you put a hex on me, make me forget what was going on back there?" I couldn't believe I hadn't remembered until I'd seen that child appear out of nowhere.

"You were here for a reason—to listen, to learn, to heal. Until those things were done, you couldn't leave. No use worryin' about it."

"I need to go back."

"Go." Ruthie flipped her hand, dismissing me.

I fell, fast and hard, slamming into my body, choking, coughing, tasting blood. My face was wet, hell, all of me was wet and my chest hurt. I reached for the pain, expecting to encounter the knife, but it wasn't there. I came upright with a curse, and my eyes snapped open.

It was raining, had been raining for quite a while considering the soaked state of my clothes and hair. One side of my body was warm, the other slightly chilled despite the remaining heat of the summer night.

Sawyer was pressed the length of me. He lifted his head; his snout and paws were covered in blood.

Nearby lay my knife, as pristine as if it had never been buried to the hilt in my chest. Considering the sharp, shiny agony that pulsed between my ribs, I had to think the rain had washed away the blood.

Had Sawyer yanked it out with his teeth? Had I done it myself in the throes of death? Or had it magically disappeared from here and appeared over there? Did it matter as long as the weapon was no longer sticking out of me?

In the distance someone shouted, and I glanced at Lake Vista, then immediately hit the ground again. The suburb was lit up like Christmas, and there were cops all over the place.

I wanted to ask Sawyer what had happened, besides the obvious—death, death, and more death. However, I didn't have time to shape-shift and play twenty questions. We needed to get out of here, and I wasn't going to be able to drive a car with paws.

"Come on," I whispered, inching back to where the Impala was parked in the shadow of the trees.

It wouldn't be long before the police widened their search. If they found a woman and a wolf near that massacre . .. Well, it would make their job a whole lot easier. They'd blame us and close the case.

Even if we were able to get out of jail by some combination of shape-shifting and magic, we'd be marked from then on. I wouldn't be able to travel with the freedom I needed. More people would die. I had enough of them on my conscience already.