Doomsday Can Wait (Phoenix Chronicles, #2)(67)

"Would appear to be a person," Sawyer said, "who turns into a lion."

"Okay," I agreed. "His parents were killed by lions."

Sawyer's gaze sharpened. "How interesting."

"Why?"

"One of his parents was a lion and from the description you read, I'd say the other was a conjurer whose magic allowed his or her spouse to remain human."

"Why would lions—Barbas or Marbas—kill their own kind?"

"In nature, there's only one alpha male per pride. Battles are fought, and when a male is vanquished, his cubs are killed, too."

My gaze went to the Impala. Luther slept on, the descending sun shining on his hair, picking up the gold in the brown and making it sparkle. "That's horrible."

"Law of the jungle," Sawyer said.

"The jungle sucks." My voice was too loud and several people glanced my way, then went back to their books, their kids, their laptops. I lowered the volume. "This isn't the jungle."

"It is to them."

My gaze was once again drawn through the front window and back to the tangled, golden-hued hair of the man-child in my backseat.

"Then why did they leave this cub alive?"





CHAPTER 25


"Who knows?" Sawyer reached for his iced coffee, seemed to remember that he'd hated it, and let his hand fall back to his knee.

"Maybe the kid does." I tossed my cup, packed up the computer, and headed outside. People inside glanced furtively at Sawyer as we passed.

The second set of tourist clothes weren't any better at disgusting Sawyer's otherness than the first had been. His biceps bulged, the white tank only made his skin appear sultrier, and his tattoos, the ones that were visi-ble, seemed to shimmer and dance beneath the electric lights. His hair billowed around his shoulders like an ebony river.

As we climbed into the Impala, Luther sat up, rubbing his eyes like a child. "Where are we?"

"Not a clue." I turned, extending a bag of muffins and several cartons of milk over the seat.

Luther's face lit up. His teeth were white but crooked. My tongue skimmed over my own not quite right teeth—typical in foster care. The government wasn't going to pay for a million and one sets of braces.

As he reached for the food and the drinks, I asked, "What do you know about your parents?" then brushed his hand with my own.

Lions. A lot of them. Stalking through the suburban house. Blood everywhere.



Mommy, her eyes like mine, yellow-green and angry. She screams for Daddy to let her change, but Daddy is with me. Daddy touches me and then—

"I wasn't there," Luther said.

He was telling the truth, or what he thought was the truth. His dad had touched him, and Luther had no longer been there. Because his father—the conjurer—had sent him somewhere else.

Sawyer was looking at me. I shook my head. I didn't think Luther knew anything useful, and I didn't think the lions—be they Marbas or Barbas—knew he existed. Or if they did, they had no idea where he'd gone. If they had, they would have followed, and Luther had been in no position then to stop them from killing him.

Luther downed the muffins and milk like the hungry lion he could easily become, then fell asleep again. He was such an odd, yet endearing, mixture of little boy and almost man. I found myself drawn to him. I wanted to protect him, even though he could no doubt protect himself much better than I ever could.

Once I was certain the kid was out cold. I murmured to Sawyer, "I saw something strange."

That I could use the word strange in a conversation about lion-shifters and conjurers was in itself strange.

"Luther loved his parents; they loved him and each other."

"Why is that strange?"

"They're demons, or at least the mother was."

"You think love is only for humans?"

"What about your—" I paused, but he knew who I meant.

"Just as there are humans who are much less than human, there are Nephilim who are much less than half human."

"So she was an exception?"

"Unfortunately she was more of the rule and what you saw in the boy's past an exception. It may be that the conjurer was not only able to control the shifting of the Barbas but also her evil tendencies."

It was something to think about—all the way to Brownport.

The town was small—mostly college—but it didn't have the usual college-town feel. Or perhaps it didn't have the usual Wisconsin college-town feel.

For instance, there wasn't a bar on every other corner. There wasn't a bar anywhere at all. Brownport just might be dry, which was understandable considering the college was Bible.

Instead, the businesses all reflected service to the people who lived and worked there and to the entity they served. There was one church, and it was huge.

Brownport Bible College spread out at the south end of town. Backed by a ripe and swaying cornfield, it consisted of ten buildings with two dorms—one male, one female.

Both the school and the town seemed empty. According to the Web site, which I'd also accessed at Starbucks, most of the students went on mission trips at this time of year. But I'd been assured by Carla that Dr. Whitelaw was in residence—he lived here—and that I could find him in his office in the late afternoon, right before his evening summer school course.