Any Given Doomsday (14 page)

“A skinwalker is a Navajo—” He stopped abruptly and I moved closer, trying to see the expression on his face. The moon had just sprung over the horizon, spreading a milky glow across the earth. I wasn’t certain, but I thought he looked confused.

“A Navajo what?” I prompted.

“Witch.”

“Sawyer’s a witch.” I had a sudden flash of him buzzing by on his broomstick, and I choked on a laugh. “Right.”

Jimmy cast me a disgusted glance. “He’s a medicine man. That you knew. You had to.”

“Yes.” I managed to control my mirth. Now wasn’t the time. I wasn’t sure there would ever be a time for laughter again.

“In Navajo tradition certain medicine men are
yee naaldlooshii
, those who walk about with it.”

“Walk about with what?”

“The skin of an animal.”

I considered his words, which had two meanings. Those who walked about in the skin of an animal—as in wearing one atop their own. Many Native American tribes had costumes made from animals, headdresses that were the actual heads of beasts.

The other option, and the one I believed we were talking about, was for human skin to transform into the skin of an animal.

“Shape-shifter.” I shrugged. “Obviously, after what we saw in Hardeyville, that doesn’t make him all that special.”

Jimmy’s smile was rueful. “As much as I hate to admit it, he is. Skinwalkers transform through magic. They wear a robe fashioned with the likeness of their spirit animal. They perform a ceremony beneath the moon and—” He spread his hands.

“They become the animals they want to be.”

“No.”

“But you just said—”

“I said
animal
. Singular. One per person and one only. Their totem or spirit animal.”

“But not Sawyer.”

“His power comes from within. The magic is in his blood, from his Nephilim mother. His skin is his robe.”

I thought of all the animals tattooed on Sawyer’s flesh. Jimmy was saying Sawyer could become every one of them. That actually explained quite a bit.

When I’d stayed here that summer, there’d been nights I came awake to the calls of animals that could not walk these hills. Usually, when I went to my window, nothing was there.

Usually.

I’d ended up doubting my sanity more often than not. At fifteen, that isn’t a good doubt to have.

Jimmy lowered his voice, as if he feared the wind could eavesdrop and carry his words to far-off, listening ears. “They say his mother was a Dreadful One and his father a medicine man who followed the Blessing Way and helped his people.”

“I don’t understand.”

“The Dreadful Ones are monsters.” He spread his hands. “I’m not exactly sure what kind.”

And I doubt anyone had ever had the balls to ask Sawyer. I certainly didn’t.

“The Blessing Way is the basis of the Navajo religion. Chants and songs that keep life on an even keel.”

“So Sawyer’s father was a holy man?”

“Yes. Which no doubt made his corruption all the more fun for her. Medicine men who dabble in black magic are considered witches, brujas. They’re renegades, and they’re hunted down by the Navajo and executed.”

“Still?”

“There are always stories.”

“And him?” I jerked my head toward the house.

“He’s too powerful to kill. Many have tried, none have succeeded.”

“Is that why he lives way out here?” I asked.

Jimmy shrugged. “Maybe. He’s an outcast from his people. Always has been.”

“So Sawyer’s father was a medicine man, one of the good guys, yet he slept with a Nephilim?”

“He didn’t mean to. She took the shape of his wife. Night after night she seduced him until she became pregnant and then—” He glanced at the house again, then back. “She killed him.”

I winced. “Black widow much?”

“I can see why he is how he is. He probably can’t help himself. The Navajo are matriarchal. Inheritance passed through the mother’s side. They believe, and I’m inclined to agree, that the mother’s blood is stronger, but—”

“But what?” I asked when he remained silent.

“Yes,” said Sawyer. “But what?”

I nearly jumped out of
my
skin. Jimmy and I both spun toward the sound. I don’t know if I expected to see Sawyer or not. One part of me thought that maybe he could hear us from afar with his super-duper batlike hearing; or perhaps he was actually a bat, swooping down low and eavesdropping, then speaking in his human voice. Though I hadn’t observed a bat tattooed anywhere the eye could see, that didn’t mean he couldn’t have one engraved on his ass.

But there was nothing supernatural about his presence. Except that he stood right behind us, and neither one of us had seen or heard him approach.

“How do you do that?”

I reached out to shove him back. He was too close. Then I remembered how his skin had been so hot, scalding almost, downright unnerving to touch, and I didn’t want to touch him again.

I let my hand fall to my side, rubbing it surreptitiously on my jeans, my palm itching, stinging despite never going near him at all.

“Do what?” he asked mildly.

When I’d been here the last time, the first time, he’d often appeared where 1 didn’t expect him, scared the hell out of me every time. Then I’d put it down to his being silent as a stalking tiger.

My gaze went to the tiger carved on his thigh. Hell. Maybe he had been.

“Skinwalkers can move faster than the eye can track,” Jimmy answered when Sawyer did not. “In their animal forms they appear and disappear like magic when it’s merely speed.”

I remembered seeing the wolf on the road, then in a blink it had been gone.

“Wouldn’t you consider that kind of speed a certain type of magic?” Sawyer murmured.

Chapter 18

Into the silence that followed Sawyer’s question, the trill of my cell phone sounded horrifically loud. I jumped, my heart jerking so hard my chest ached, then fumbled the thing from my pocket, nearly dropping it before I managed to check the caller ID.

Murphy’s
. I had to answer.

“Did you get the autopsy report?” I asked.

“Well, hello to you too.”

“Sorry. Hello. Did you?”

“Where in hell are you, Liz?” Megan lowered her voice to a near whisper. “The cops are flipping out.”

“I’m not a suspect. They didn’t tell me I couldn’t leave town.”

“Why would you? Now of all times.”

“I can’t tell you that, Meg.”

“Fine,” she said, then paused a few beats as if she didn’t want to tell me what she’d heard. Or maybe she just didn’t know how.

I turned away from Sawyer and Jimmy. I couldn’t concentrate with them in sight. If they wanted to kill each other while I dealt with my phone call, they could go right ahead.

“Let me make this easier for you,” I said. “They found traces of animal fur.”

“How did you—” She stopped. Megan understood better than most that I knew things I should not, and there was no explaining just how.

“The homicide twins told me the cause of death was a knife wound,” I continued.

“Not.”

My shoulders relaxed. I hadn’t really believed that Jimmy might have been responsible, but a different cause of death certainly helped his case with the cops.

“Wounds, yes,” Meg continued. “Torn, jagged, vicious, but not from a knife.”

I knew what they’d been from—tooth and claw—but I waited for her to say so.

“The wounds were consistent with an animal attack, but the actual cause of death was blood loss.”

I winced. “Too many wounds.”

Her hesitation had my neck prickling. “Meg?”

“The ME said the blood loss wasn’t consistent with the number and depth of the wounds. She thought they—”

The unpleasant sensation had left my neck, traveling all over my body. “She thought they what?”

“Drank her blood.”

I dropped the cell phone.

Someone handed it to me. I stared at the thing and wasn’t sure what to do with it.

“Lizzy?” My eyes met Jimmy’s. “Finish this.”

Slowly I reached out, took the phone, and turned away again. “What does that mean?”

“You tell me. The ME believes Ruthie was attacked by animals, yet the police report says there was nothing but ashes and you at the site.”

“I didn’t do it.”

Her voice gentled. “I never thought you did, even before the revelation of the bizarre forensic evidence. But you know something.”

“I can’t—”

She sighed. “Tell me. Right. Why did I even ask?”

“Sorry.”

“When will you be back?”

“I’m not sure.” I still wasn’t sure I’d
be
back, and I was saddened. Ruthie was gone, but Meg was there. She was the only one I had left now. I faced the two men.

Except for them.

“Take as long as you need, Liz. Your job will be waiting for you.”

“Thanks. For everything.”

Megan hesitated, as if she might say good-bye, but then she didn’t. “You need to stop blaming yourself.”

She’d told me this before. I still wasn’t able to follow her advice.

“Max trusted you.”

“One time too many.”

“He told me everything, Liz. About your hunches. About how you could touch stuff and know where people were. You saved lives over and over. You saved him.”

“Not enough.”

“When is it ever enough? I don’t blame you. He wouldn’t blame you.
You
need to stop blaming yourself. You have a gift and you should be using it.”

“I am,” I whispered.

“Good. You’ve been drifting since Max died. You lost your purpose and that’s no way to live.”

Silence fell between us. I wasn’t sure what to say. I’d known that Megan didn’t blame me for Max’s death. I’d thought she was delusional. I’d hung around waiting for her to lash out, to give me the beating—mental, physical, didn’t matter—that I deserved, but she never had.

“I’ll be in touch,” I said, and disconnected.

I did feel, for the first time in a long time, that I was moving forward instead of standing still. Though I’d been repeatedly tested and terrified, I’d also been exhilarated. I felt alive again, thanks to the constant threat of violent and bloody death.

“How much of that did you get?” I asked.

“All of it,” Jimmy said. At my lifted brows, he glanced at Sawyer, then shrugged. “We can both hear pretty well.”

“Swell.”

Jimmy cast Sawyer a glare. “What do you know about Ruthie’s death?” he demanded.

“Me?” Sawyer put his hand to his bare chest with an exaggerated show of surprise. “I was here.”

“So you say, but we all know you lie. You can move faster than light. Who’s to say you weren’t there, and a few hours later right here again. You wouldn’t even need a damn plane.”

I frowned. “You can transform into animals.”

Slowly Sawyer lowered his hand, trailing his fingers along his sternum, his rib cage, his belly. The stark lines of the tattoos seemed to undulate in the half-light from the windows. For an instant it seemed that the animals traced into his skin were dancing.

I jerked my gaze to his. I could see nothing in their gray depths but myself. I felt a strange tug, one I’d never felt before. Not with him, not with anyone.

“You know what I am and what I can do,” he said.

“There were all kinds of animals at Ruthie’s.”

His lips curved. “You think one of them was me?”

I didn’t know what I thought anymore. Who could I trust? Who should I kill?

“Touch him.”

I started at the voice so near to my ear. Jimmy’s voice.

I pulled my gaze from Sawyer’s with difficulty. “Are you crazy?”

“You had a gift even before Ruthie gave you hers. You could see things. What will you see if you touch him?”

I might not see anything. Then again—

I returned my attention to Sawyer, who smirked.

Leaning over, Jimmy whispered, “I’m not sure why. Sawyer could hear every damn thing that we said. Touch him and see where he was. Isn’t that what you do? Find people?”

Our eyes met and I remembered. Touching him, kissing him, loving him, and seeing that he’d been touching and kissing and loving someone else.

I stepped back. “I don’t want to.”

Jimmy cursed and slapped something cool and hard and heavy into my hand.

His gun.

“Do it for her,” he ground out through his teeth. “If he was there, shoot him in the head.”

“Will that kill him?”

“I have no idea,” Jimmy said. “But it’ll certainly slow him down.”

Then he stalked into the house, leaving the door open behind him. I stared at the gun for several seconds.

“Are you going to touch me, Phoenix?”

Sawyer’s whisper caressed my skin like the wind, but there was no wind, there was only him and me and the gun. I stared at the doorway through which Jimmy had passed and felt betrayed, lost, alone.

What else was new?

I turned and Sawyer was so close, I stumbled back. “Don’t
do
that!”

“What have I done?” He followed, one step, two. “Gotten close enough to touch. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

I wanted nothing less, but when had what I wanted ever been what I could have?

Desperate to put off the inevitable, I asked, “Wh-why would the beasts drink her blood?”

His head tilted, an odd birdlike movement. My eyes flicked to the eagle emblazoned on his neck.

“Power.” He leaned in until his cheek nearly brushed my hair, inhaling deeply. “Seers reek of it.”

I gritted my teeth, tightened my grip on the gun, and tried to lift my free hand, but I couldn’t make it move.

“How do you want to touch me?”

His voice was the night swirling all around me, a voice I’d heard in my dreams far too often and too well. That voice was both familiar and frightening.

Years had passed. Sawyer hadn’t aged, but I had. That seemed to have changed everything.

Slowly I leaned back so that I could meet his gaze, and then I couldn’t look away. In his eyes swirled the images of all the animals that graced his body.

“Touch me,” he ordered. “Any way, anywhere. I won’t mind.”

I shivered, but I touched him. I saw centuries, aeons, all rushing toward me, then past me. My hair blew back; the wind felt so cool.