CHAPTER 17

I was speechless. Might be a first. But seriously, what could I say to a revelation like that?

“I—uh—” I blinked several times and finished with, “What?”

“Did you think your name was plucked out of a hat?”

“Sure.”

“It wasn’t.”

I wrestled with the word “duh.” If I let that comment past my lips, I’d only get smacked. I swallowed hard; it felt as if the comment were literally a rock in my throat, but I forced it down.

“Isn’t this something I should have been told before she rose from the dead and flew off with the key to ruling the world?” Or at least all the demons in it.

“What good would it have done?”

“What good?” My voice rose; hysteria bubbled just beneath the surface. “What good? Isn’t knowledge power?”

“She was dead, Lizbeth. I had no idea she would crawl out of her grave and fly away.”

“Isn’t that what a phoenix does?”

“Not exactly.” Luther’s full, youthful mouth puckered in a very Ruthie-like way. “A phoenix dances upon the flames of its funeral pyre, then rises from its own ashes to live another thousand years.”

“Fan-fucking-tastic,” I muttered. “My mother was—is—a Nephilim.”

It was a revelation on par with discovering that the Uncle Charlie everyone was always referring to had the last name of Manson.

“Not exactly,” Ruthie repeated.

“What exactly?”

“She’s other.”

“Like Sawyer?”

“No one’s like Sawyer.”

Another comment that deserved a “duh” but wouldn’t be getting one.

I thought back to what I’d been told about those who were “other.” Grigori plus human equals Nephilim. Nephilim plus human births a breed. But a Nephilim breeding with a Nephilim gave rise to something apart from both humans and monsters. A being that could never truly be either one. By combining two forces of evil, those that were other could become stronger than either of the parents who created them.

“My mother is other,” I murmured. “The product of two Nephilim.”

Somewhere in the back of my mind, the demon began to laugh. I ignored it. I was getting better at that by the minute.

“What kind of Nephilim?” I asked.

Luther shrugged. “Seers see the Nephilim at hand, not their entire family tree.”

“Someone should know.”

Luther glanced toward the mountain again, then quickly back. “Perhaps. But not me.”

“What about my father?”

“What about him?”

“Who is he? Where is he? Should I expect him to try and kill me any time soon?”

“I’ve never heard a word about your father.”

“I’m supposed to believe that?”

“I’ve never lied to you, child.”

I laughed. “You told me I was an orphan.”

“You were as far as I knew. Your mother was dead, your father a mystery.”

I stared into the familiar dark eyes set in a face that was far too young for them and wondered. Had Ruthie ever lied to me? She’d omitted a helluva lot, but an out-and-out lie? I wasn’t sure. I did know that if she’d lied, she’d had a good reason. I also knew that if she’d lied for that good reason, she certainly wasn’t going to admit the truth to me now just because I’d asked.

“You’ll meet her soon,” Ruthie said, “and then your questions will be answered.”

All my life I’d craved a mother. Even after I’d found Ruthie, or she’d found me, and the constant ache had faded, I’d still wondered; sometimes I’d dreamed. Now I had a mother, and she was a double-damned half demon. Or maybe a quarter demon. So what did that make me?

Same thing I’d always been.

A freak, but a very, very powerful one.

“Okay,” I managed. “Where do I go from here?”

“Infiltrate the Nephilim, take the book, do whatever’s necessary to send the Grigori back to Tartarus.”

“I don’t believe the Nephilim are going to buy my defection.”

“There’ll be tests.” Ruthie sighed, and glanced away again. “There always are.”

“What kind of tests?”

A long, dark finger tapped against the glittering stones of my dog collar. “There’s a reason for this. A reason for everything.”

“The only way to fight them is with a darkness as complete as they are,” I murmured.

“Exactly.”

“Jimmy—” I began.

The boy’s huge palm cupped my cheek, but Ruthie stared out of his eyes. “I’d never send you there alone, child.”

Then the kid blinked, and she was gone.

“Wait—” I began. But it was too late. “Shit.”

Luther dropped his hand from my face and backed up. I tried not to be offended when he rubbed his palm on his pants.

“Sounds like you need to go,” he said.

“Wish I knew where. I doubt the forces of evil are all gathering for a convention in a town called Hell.”

“You never know.”

My gaze sharpened. “Do you know?”

He shook his head and silence settled between us. I wasn’t sure what else to say. Take care. Watch your back. Trust no one. Kill first; ask questions later. He knew all that, had probably known it before he’d met me.

“Well”—I cleared my throat—“no sense hanging around.”

“You gotta fly to Milwaukee? Have the gargoyle let you back into . . . ?” He pointed to the ground.

“No.” I reached into my pocket and pulled out a plastic bag containing a spoonful of dirt. “I have a key.”

“Stole earth from the Otherworld.” Luther’s mouth curved. “Nice.”

In truth, I hadn’t stolen it, though I should have. I hate to admit it, but possessing the key to the lock on the Otherworld was nothing short of an accident.

If I’d been thinking clearly, if I’d still been the me I once was, I never would have left Jimmy behind with no way of getting him back. That I had only showed how far away from the old me I’d come.

When I’d returned from the Otherworld, I’d found grit in my hair, underwear and socks, so I’d gathered it into my palm; then I’d put it into this bag.

“If Sawyer shows up . . .” I paused and Luther tilted his head, waiting. I sighed. “Never mind.”

“He could help,” Luther said. “Just let me know where—”

“No,” I said. All I needed was for all three of us—or four, or even five if Luther told Sawyer and Summer where we’d be—to go charging into Nephilim land. That would really look suspicious. I still wasn’t sure how I was going to manage it.

I headed for the nearest hill, which in New Mexico was more of a mountain. I wouldn’t need to go all the way up. Considering how I’d gotten in the last time, I figured a foothill would do.

On the way, I glanced back at Sawyer’s place. I thought Luther would be watching, maybe he’d even wave, but he was gone.

The wind swept across the desert, dry and hot, ruffling the short, shaggy length of my hair. I found myself straining to hear Ruthie’s whisper on that wind, missing it and her all over again. Sometimes I was so damn lonely.

I’m here, the demon whispered.

“Not for long.”

The only response was more laughter.

I lay on the crackling dry scrub, ignoring the rocks that cut into my shoulders. Quickly I took a pinch of earth, held it up to the clouds, thought better of the angle considering the wind and lowered my arm before releasing it.

The remnants of the Otherworld cast across my cheeks and chin like silt, and like before, the ground beneath me churned as the sky fell away, and the earth closed in.

Darkness reigned. I didn’t dare breathe. For a long, terrifying instant, I lay caught between one world and the next. My muscles tensed as I prepared to fight my way out; then the earth beneath me loosened, and I tumbled free.

At first I thought the dirt in my ears was scratching together too close to my eardrums and creating a god-awful racket. Then I shook my head; the dirt came out, and the sound became even louder.

Someone was screaming.

I jumped up; earth fell like hail all around me, disappearing through the clouds billowing at my feet. The sky remained the shade of tree bark, and mist shrouded everything.

“Hello?” I called.

The screaming grew louder.

“Shit.” I pulled my silver knife—since Jimmy had given it to me several months ago the thing rarely left my possession—and moved toward the sound. Whoever, whatever, that was, I had to make the shrieking stop.

Then it did. Abruptly. Completely. The resulting silence seemingly louder than the screaming had been.

The mist thickened, brushing against my face like cobwebs of ice, curving around my neck, sliding down my back, so slick it almost seemed to whisper.

Lizzy.

I paused, straining my eyes, my ears. Was that the mist? Or was it Sanducci?

I was glad the shrieking had ended, and then again I wasn’t. The sound was crazy-making, sure, but without it I was lost in a world I didn’t know.

What had been screaming? More important, why?

“Hello?” I called again, and something in the swirl of white shifted.

My fingers tightened on the knife. Who knew what lurked here? Who knew if silver would do anything but piss it off? Nevertheless, silver was better than nothing.

I waited, trying to slow my breathing, to blend into the mist. But I was too big. I glanced down at my hot pink tank top and winced. Too bright. And my heart was beating too hard and fast.

I was a target, plain and simple. Luckily I was a target that was very hard to kill.