Doomsday Can Wait (Phoenix Chronicles, #2)(87)

Ruthie came in, took one look at my torn clothes, at the livid red scratches that marred my skin, then folded me into her arms, and hustled me upstairs. Right before I left the room, I turned back, but Jimmy was already gone.

I begged Ruthie not to call the police. My word against his. I knew how things worked. So did Ruthie. She nodded slowly, and then she put me to bed.

The next day Mr. Nix wasn't at school. Or the day after that or ever again.





CHAPTER 32


"You killed him," I said. "Mr. Nix."

Jimmy shrugged, and his muscles rippled seductively beneath his bare, smooth skin. "He touched you."

"Jesus, Jimmy," I muttered. "There are a lot of guys you'd have to kill if that were the criteria."

"And I have," he murmured. "Killed a lot of guys."

My eyes narrowed on his too still face. "How many were actually guys?"

"A few."

"And Mr. Nix? What was he?"

"A Nix is a German shape-shifter. Horse, snake, fish, or mermaid."

"Merman," I corrected absently.

"Whatever. Legends say they have sex with their victims then drag them into the nearest body of water to drown."

I guess that explained what I'd seen when I'd touched him. Lots of dead girls in the water. And if it weren't for Jimmy, I'd have joined them.

I heard again the swish of his silver blade. "You killed him," I said, "and he was ashes."

"Would explain how he disappeared."

"You didn't see?"

"I stuck him and ran. I wasn't stupid. The guy was huge."

I frowned. "You didn't know?"

"That he was a shifter? Not then."

Which meant Jimmy had thought he was killing a man. A molester, true, but human.

Jimmy saw the understanding cross my face. "He hurt you; he died. End of story."

I wasn't sure what to say about that. Nix had been a demon: that Jimmy hadn't known it when he killed him hadn't changed what Nix was, what he'd done to more girls than me, and what he would have done to countless others if not for Sanducci.

"Why didn't you know? Why didn't Ruthie?"

"Seers can't see every demon. You'd go loony."

I wasn't certain we weren't.

"There are just too many of them," Jimmy said. "We do the best that we can."

Silence fell between us. But it didn't last long.

"Do you hate me now?" Jimmy asked.

I'd hated him for years, but not for that.

"Nix was a demon," I said.

"I didn't know that."

I moved closer, wrapping my arms around his waist, capturing him when he would have tried to escape, though there was nowhere for him to go, then laying my cheek against his chest and listening to the familiar beat of his heart. "I've known for years that you killed him, Jimmy, and I thought he was human, too."

That shut him up.

"I touched you; I loved you; I gave you myself; and I knew all along what you did."

"Mr. Nix disappeared. You didn't know jack."

"I knew."

He leaned back, and I lifted my head to meet his curious eyes. "You saw?"

"No." Amazingly, I hadn't seen what had happened to Mr. Nix any of the times I'd touched Jimmy, which meant that the killing of the man hadn't bothered Sanducci all that much. He hadn't thought about it, dreamed of it, or agonized over it. Neither had I. The guy had deserved to die. Some just did.

"Then how—" Jimmy asked.

"I can add," I said. "Knife, you, Nix. Deadsville."

I didn't tell him that there'd been other times when I'd touched him that I'd gotten wisps of his past, seen faces of others, known things that he'd done. It didn't matter.

Of course the police had come eventually. A tax-paying citizen—and Nix was that, too, as well as a demon—couldn't disappear without questions being asked. So they'd quizzed everyone, especially those of us who lived at Ruthie's place, especially Jimmy Sanducci.

Jimmy had spent time in jail once—juvie, sure, but jail nevertheless. Something about a knife. No shock there. But the incident, whatever it was—and I'd never been able to get him to tell me with words or memories-had been enough to make the cops suspicious.

There'd been other incidents, both before Jimmy had come to Ruthie's and afterward. Things that Ruthie had somehow managed to make go away. Which explained the wisps I saw sometimes when I touched him.

At the time I'd thought Nix was a run-of-the-mill serial killer. Since he'd disappeared, and I had a pretty good idea how, I kept my mouth shut. I'd learned young not to talk about the things I "saw." I was happy to "keep it in the family," as Ruthie advised.

Now that I knew what Nix had been, I had some questions of my own. "Was he after me because of who I'd become?"

Jimmy frowned, considering, then shook his head. "None of the Nephilim knew about Ruthie's until—" He broke off.

Until Jimmy had been infiltrated. I shouldn't have brought that up.

"Seems too much of a coincidence that a demon would try to kill me less than a year after I got there." I mused.