Chaos Bites Part 10

"You found my gift?"

The distant motor suddenly becomes louder; the weight on my chest s.h.i.+fts; tiny needles of pain shoot through me, and I begin to wake up.

I fight it. I can't go yet. There are things I need to know. Even if this is a dream, my dreams are seldom meaningless.

I take a quick glance at the surface of Sawyer's lake, but the wolf, the clouds, even the moon is gone. However, that single look is all I need to center myself again in this world. But I need to hurry. The other is calling me home.

"I found your gift," I answer. "Someone tried to kill her."

"That's bound to happen."

"Because of her mother?"

He stills. "Why would you think that?"

"They didn't know she could shape-s.h.i.+ft. They thought a kitten was just a kitten, which means they didn't come after her because she's like you."

Sawyer takes a deep breath, his chest pressing against my back, so warm and real, I clench my hands to keep from turning and touching him.

"You're right," he says. "They didn't come after her because of who she is. They came after her because of who she will become."

CHAPTER 9.

My eyes snapped open. Another set stared directly into mine. Faith sat on my chest, kneading her paws, p.r.i.c.king me periodically with her kitty claws and purring loud enough to wake, if not the dead, at least me.

The gray light of dawn peeked around the curtains. Luther sat in the chair by the window, staring at the parking lot.

"You never slept."

"I wasn't tired." He continued to peer outside.

"You will be."

"I can sleep in the car."

Since I still wasn't going to let him drive, he could. Use a gun, wield a knife, face a dragon, go nuts, kid. But drive? I had to set some limits.

"You were really tossing and turning." Luther faced me. "Mumbling. Sighing."

d.a.m.n. I hoped I hadn't been moaning, too.

"Dreams," I said.

"Anything useful?"

I sat up, and Faith tumbled off, emitting a surprised and slightly annoyed brrr as she did. Then she gave me a dirty look and stalked away with her tail in the air. I had to smile. The kitten had 'tude. She'd need it.

"According to Sawyer-"

Luther's eyebrows shot up. "Sawyer?"

I shrugged. Dead people giving us advice wasn't anything new. "He said they aren't after Faith because of who she is but because of who she'll become."

"What does that mean?"

"I'm not sure." But there was one way to find out. "I need to raise Sawyer and have a little chat."

Luther's gaze went to Faith as she began to shred the curtains just for fun. "Who do you think she'll become? Someone good, or someone bad?"

I frowned. I hadn't thought about that. I guess it depended on who her mother was. I wished I knew. But wis.h.i.+ng had always done me about as much good as crying-which meant no d.a.m.n good at all.

"What if she's-?" Luther stopped, pressing his lips together as if to keep a secret from tumbling out. Then he got quickly to his feet, startling the kitten so badly she scrambled backward, hissing. But when she recognized Luther, she quieted, and she didn't shred him when he picked her up and sheltered her in his long, gangly arms.

"The Antichrist?" I finished.

Luther's grip tightened. "You're not killing her. I won't let you."

I sighed. If I could save the world from annihilation by drowning a baby, would I? I wasn't sure, and that I wasn't freaked me out so much I started grasping at any straw I could find.

"Sawyer wanted me to protect her," I blurted. "He wouldn't protect evil."

"Sawyer's . . . Sawyer," Luther countered. "I don't know what he'd do, and I don't think you do, either. His mother was one of the psycho-est psychos ever. Who knows how badly she f.u.c.ked him up."

"Language," I murmured, hating to admit that Luther was right. "The Nephilim sent those guys to kill her. Why would they pay for someone to off their future leader?"

"Are you sure the Nephilim sent them?"

I rubbed my forehead. The kid was starting to get on my nerves.

"I refuse to accept that anyone on the side of light would send a.s.sa.s.sins after a baby." Not that I didn't think they might; I just refused to accept it.

"The only way to know who wants her dead is to find out who she'll become, and the only one who knows that is-"

"Sawyer," I finished. "Which brings me back to the original plan-find Sanducci, dump the baby with him for safekeeping, then head for the hills."

Luther stood. "Let's do it."

Since we'd showered the night before, we were dressed and gone in ten. Would have been five if Luther hadn't thought to take Faith for a walk in the tall gra.s.s.

I had no worry that she'd dart off and we'd never see her again. She followed Luther around like an adoring little sister. Did her kitten sense his cub?

Once Faith was finished, we found the nearest McDonald's drive-through, then hit the road. In this form Faith was easier to deal with-no crying, no bottle, no begging for her binkie, no fighting against the car seat.

She turned her nose up at the pancakes but devoured her sausage patties as well as mine, then lapped water out of a cup and settled into Luther's lap to play with the sunbeams that traced across his jeans. When she got bored she trailed into the backseat, and the next time I looked her way she was asleep.

Being a kitten had to be easier than being a baby as well. She could move. She could eat food. She could pretty much do whatever the h.e.l.l she wanted. I didn't blame her for crying while in human form. It had to suck to find herself in the body of a frail child after she'd experienced the freedom that came from becoming a quick and clever little cat.

Six hours later we pulled off the highway and stared at a whole lot of empty. Called maco sica by the Lakota, or "land bad"-very original-the region was the epitome of desolation. b.u.t.tes and spires, canyons and gullies stretched in a seemingly unending stream toward the horizon.

"How, exactly, are we going to find Sanducci in the middle of that?" Luther asked.

From what I'd read on the Internet last night, the Badlands consisted of 244,000 square miles of constantly eroding sediment. So ma.s.sive, so silent, so intimidating they went beyond creepy. Considering what I'd seen in the last several months, that was saying a lot.

The Badlands were also quite pretty. The erosion had revealed every color of the earth and sky. Purple and yellow, tan and gray, red, orange, and white-when the sun hit the land just right, the place called maco sica was nothing short of exquisite.

"I'm not sure how to find him," I admitted.

"We just drove for two days," Luther said, "and you're not sure?"

"Any word from Ruthie?"

Closing his eyes, Luther tilted his head. I caught my breath, but when Luther opened his eyes, they remained hazel instead of brown.

"I called, she didn't answer." Luther shrugged. "Sometimes she does that. Usually when she's already told me what I need to know."

I'm only gonna say somethin' once; you'd best listen.

A Ruthie-ism she rarely, if ever, broke. Which meant she'd told me where Jimmy was; I'd just been too preoccupied to hear it.

"Take the cat for a walk and let me think," I ordered.

Luther and Faith disappeared into the dry gra.s.s; I sat on the hood of the Impala and racked my brain.

Jimmy had been sent to the Badlands to deal with a nest of Iyas.

"Badlands," I murmured. "Check."

Iyas were Lakota storm monsters that drank blood, a vampire in any language. When not in faceless, storm monster mode, they blended in.

I glanced at a nearby sign. "Pine Ridge Reservation. Check."

According to my quick Internet jaunt last night, the Pine Ridge Reservation covered more area than Rhode Island and Delaware combined. Though an exact tally of inhabitants was impossible due to the terrain of the land and the nature of the Lakota, estimates placed the population at around forty thousand.

With unemployment hovering near eighty percent and creating an alcoholism issue that defied sanity, it was easy to understand how the Iyas could blend in. The people of Pine Ridge had enough problems of their own without worrying about vampire storm monsters hiding among them.

In fact, maybe those vampire storm monsters were partially responsible for one of the shortest life expectancies of any group in the western hemisphere. Adult males of Pine Ridge only lived to be around forty-seven, with females lasting into their early fifties. While I was at it, I might as well go ahead and blame a four-times-the-normal rate of adolescent suicide on the Iyas, too.

"What else?" I murmured.

Iyas brought winter wherever they walked.

My gaze wandered over the hills and valleys, the spires, gulches, and gullies, drawn inexorably to one flat-topped precipice that appeared capped with white. Behind it cobalt-colored clouds roiled.

"Bingo," I muttered.

I turned to call for the kid, but he was already barreling out of the tall gra.s.s with the kitten in his arms. My hand went immediately to the knife at my waist, and my gaze searched the peacefully swaying foliage for an enemy. None appeared.

"Lizbeth!" Ruthie's voice flowed from Luther's mouth.

"Now she talks," I muttered.

"Jimmy's in trouble, child, and you're the only one who can help."

CHAPTER 10.

Luther hopped into the car; I did the same. Faith was wired, and at first bounced off the windows screeching. When Luther tried to grab her she scratched him.

"What if we bought a blanket with a baby on it? Would that make her change back?" Luther asked around the bleeding finger he'd shoved into his mouth.

Ruthie was gone; the kid had returned, which was fine by me. If Jimmy was in trouble, I needed Luther's talent for fighting creatures of the d.a.m.ned, not Ruthie's talent for talking about them.

"Good idea." I spun gravel as I put us back on the road. "I'll get right on that once everything calms down."

Luther snorted. "As if."

Right again. For me, for him, nothing ever calmed down.

As we approached the flat-topped mountain, signs proclaimed it SHEEP MOUNTAIN TABLE-summit 3,143 feet above sea level. I wasn't sure how high that was, but it appeared pretty d.a.m.n high from where I sat.

Continuing upward, the road became less traveled, more a trail, better for bikes, but the Impala was no more a quitter than I was, and she made the climb, gravel pinging against the undercarriage, weeds tangling in her b.u.mper, dust spraying over the glistening powder-blue paint job.

I was driving faster than I should, but the sense of urgency that had sprung to life with Ruthie's voice only increased the closer I got to the top. I could smell a storm-sweet rain and ozone. Thunder rumbled and lightning crackled overhead. The wind began to whip up dust devils, twirling the red, brown, and gray particles of earth into a thousand mini cyclones.

We came over the rise too fast, and the bottom of the car crunched nauseatingly. But the sight that met my wide-eyed gaze made my stomach lurch even worse.

"Looks like a scene from The Mummy Returns All Over Again," Luther muttered.

I'd have laughed if anything about this-beyond Luther beginning to talk like me-were funny.

Jimmy was here, and d.a.m.n but he needed me. Sure, he had help. Summer Bartholomew-his current seer-and Sanducci fought, back-to-back, in the center of a spotty gra.s.s-covered plain atop the mountain. Patches of snow melted here and there, and what trees there were shuddered beneath the weight of far too many icicles.

The Iyas were something to see. The bodies of warriors, honed strong, their skin glistening as snow-flakes swirled about them, melting wherever they touched. They wore traditional Lakota leggings made from hides, probably buffalo, and from their waists hung the skulls of those they'd killed. The clack of the bones whenever the Iyas moved was louder and more terrible than thunder.