Any Given Doomsday (27 page)

“You arrived so very quickly.” His voice was mesmerizing—melodious and foreign. If he hadn’t been an evil half-demon bent on making the human race his plaything, I might have been charmed.

“I am impressed. I believed we would have to do more to coax you here. But then love—” His lips twisted with disdain. “It has always been the undoing of the human race.”

He’d used Jimmy as bait—no shock there. What I couldn’t figure out was how Jimmy had allowed himself to be used. No one had used Sanducci since he was eight.

“You have survived every test I’ve sent.”

My face must have shown my confusion because he laughed, the sound smooth, rich, and somehow wrong— joy sprouting from the joyless, amusement where amusement did not belong. “The berserker. The chindi. The coyotes.” He spread his hands. “I did not think they would win, but I had to try.”

I remained silent, trying to think, to come up with a plan, but having very little luck. It would be nice if Jimmy would wake up. Even nicer if his chains would just fall off like the Apostle Paul’s so he could do something other than die.

“I should have known from the moment I heard your name—Phoenix—that you would rise from the ashes of every calamity.”

The Strega looked me up and down. The touch of his gaze made me long for a hot shower and a gallon of bleach.

“I am sorry to say you will not rise from this,” he continued. “You have great powers, yes. But in the end, you are only human.”

I couldn’t keep my mouth shut any longer. “We’ll win, and you know it.”

“Do I?” His lips curved; I caught just a hint of fang.

“Read the Bible lately?” I lifted a brow. “Oh, I forgot. Your hands probably get a little crispy whenever you touch one. I’ll give you the Cliffs Notes—good always triumphs in the end. Always.”

“Do you really think so? What is the point of a battle if the outcome is certain?” He lifted one shoulder, then lowered it. “Even if I lose in one of the years to come, the longer I win, the longer I stay out of that burning lake of fire I have heard so much about. So do not expect me to just give in.”

“Ditto,” I murmured.

He laughed again. “Delightful. I do enjoy guts, and not always for lunch.” The Strega contemplated me with an expression I couldn’t decipher, but I thought it might be admiration. “I’d like to make you an offer: Care to join my side?”

My answer was a snort. “I’m not that easy.”

“No?” His face turned cruel. “According to my son, you were the easiest he ever had.”

I jolted, both at the revelation, which really wasn’t much of one, and at the crude dismissal of one of my fondest memories.

The Strega’s eyes widened. “Hit a nerve? Which one? Where you gave up the prize of your innocence so soon, or where the man you have loved most of your life has turned traitor?”

Just because Jimmy was the Strega’s son—if that was even true; all I had right now was the Strega’s word, and a lot of circumstantial evidence—didn’t mean Jimmy was on his side. Why would he be? The man had left him in the streets to be used and abused.

Considering the blood, the chains, the just-healed scars, it appeared the Strega had continued that policy since they’d renewed their acquaintance. Even if Jimmy had gone off the deep end, pledging undying devotion upon meeting his long-lost daddy, I couldn’t see how that devotion would prevail past all the torture.

Of course, stranger things had happened.

“Sticks and stones,” I said. “There’s really nothing you can say that’s going to make me leave him behind.”

“Leave him? Just where is it you think you are going?”

“After we kill you, maybe we’ll take a vacation.”

The Strega started laughing again. I really hated that laugh.

“He has wondered about me nearly all of his life. Did you really think he’d kill me once he found me?”

“How did he find you?”

The Strega lifted one shoulder. “I let him.”

“You knew he’d come to New York once he heard the seer was killed,” I guessed.

My only answer was a slight tilting of his lips.

I could easily determine what had happened next. Jimmy had done what Jimmy did best; he’d gone searching for a vampire, and this vampire had allowed himself to be found. Jimmy had been trapped as neatly as I had.

The Strega moved so fast all I saw was a blur, straight toward me. I gave a little squeak, then he was gone.

I whirled. He held a knife that glinted golden in the harsh overhead lights against Jimmy’s throat. If what the Strega said was true, if Jimmy hadn’t killed him when he had the chance, if he’d been won to the Strega’s side somehow, I should just let the medieval vampire witch do his worst. But there was always the chance the Nephilim was lying.

A damn good chance.

“You do not believe he’s one of us now,” the Strega said. “You think that if you can have a moment with him, you can bring him back. But life doesn’t work that way, Miss Phoenix. You of all people should know better.”

There was very little I hated more than when evil vampire witches were right.

“He has two natures, vampire and human. Until recently he’s lived as one of you; he had no idea who he was. But since we shared blood, he’s become more like me. For me he would do anything. Which is why I conceived him in the first place.”

Understanding dawned and the Strega smirked. “Your face is so wondrously expressive. Yes, I planted him in his mother’s womb so that he could be positioned right in the middle of the federation. A talent like his would never go unnoticed. It was only a matter of time until he was right where I wanted him to be.”

“Why now?” I asked. The strega lifted a brow. “He’s been your creation from day one, so why declare war now and not three years past or maybe ten in the future?”

The Strega’s mirth faded and an expression of annoyance took its place. “I’ve been trying for years to get into his head. Spells and charms. Nothing worked. He’s much stronger than I thought.”

For an instant I felt a sense of pride that Jimmy had resisted. I opened my mouth to say so, but the strega kept yapping.

“Destiny works both ways, seer. Everything came together. My son inside the enemy camp, those with the talents I needed willing to join under my banner, and several very good years in the stock market.” He shrugged. “Even doomsday costs money.”

“What if serendipity”—I couldn’t get the word
destiny
out of my mouth in regard to so much blood and death—”hadn’t arrived before Jimmy died?” He was on the cutting edge of the battle, after all, had been for years. Sooner or later, everyone’s luck ran out. Just look at mine.

“Seer.” He shook his head and made a “shame on you” sound by clicking his tongue against his teeth. “You think Jimmy’s an only child?”

Before I had time to curse, the Strega sliced Jimmy’s neck with the golden knife.

I took a step forward, and with an absent flick of his free hand, the Strega threw me into the wall without even touching me.

My back hit with a thud, my head with a crack. The silver knife skidded across the floor, but I barely noticed as I slid into a dizzy heap. I blinked hard, trying to make the Tweety Birds quit chirping so loudly while they whirled round and round my head.

The Strega leaned down and lapped the blood from his son’s skin. Jimmy moaned, the same sound I’d heard when I’d accidentally cut him, a sound I now recognized as ecstasy, not pain. I turned my face as my stomach rolled.

“He isn’t human,” the Strega whispered. “He never was.”

My nausea receded; anger took its place. “He’s more human than you think.”

“I’ve awakened his lust for blood and pain. He cannot fight it anymore. He doesn’t want to.”

The Strega suckled Jimmy’s neck. I wanted to gag again.

“If he’s on your side and all our plans are crap, why didn’t you just kill me the instant I walked in here?” I asked.

Lifting his head, the Strega licked his lips. “He is my son, and the one thing he’s asked of me in return for all he’s done…” He straightened, petting Jimmy’s sweat-matted hair fondly. “Is that I give him you.”

Chapter 32

His words caused a spark of hope. My mistake.

“You think he’s still Jimmy?” The strega sneered. “That he begged me for your life? Watch.” He lifted the gold knife and sliced his own arm.

Note to self—pure gold doesn’t make a strega burst into flames. Too bad. That would have been a bonfire worth watching.

The strega waved his bleeding arm in front of Jimmy’s face, and like a baby desperate for nourishment, Jimmy latched on.

“The more he drinks, the more vampire he becomes. Soon there will be nothing left of the human at all.”

“I don’t believe you,” I said.

The strega removed his arm from Jimmy’s mouth. It came away with a sucking sound that almost made me hurl. Jimmy fought against the restraints as the strega chuckled and patted him on the head. Then Jimmy’s eyes snapped open, and I saw the truth.

No one was home.

He recognized me because he said, “Elizabeth.” Except Jimmy never called me that.

Why hadn’t I listened to Sawyer and avoided this trap? Would I have, even if I’d known?

No. Because Jimmy, back when he’d been Jimmy, would never have left me here alone.

“She came, Father,” Jimmy whispered. “Just like you wanted.” He jerked against the chains. “Let me go now.”

The Strega’s long fingers, which should have had razor-sharp, scraggly fingernails but were instead manicured and buffed until they shone, stroked Jimmy’s hair again. “You don’t want to kill her right away. What fun is that? Besides, the blood of a seer—” He licked his lips, the gesture so suggestive, so… hungry I had another “settle down” talk with my stomach. “Ambrosia,” the Strega finished.

His gaze met mine, and the smirk was back. I clenched my hands to keep from launching myself across the room and smacking him. He’d only smack me back, and he wouldn’t even need his hands.

I put aside thoughts of killing him. I didn’t yet know how. But I’d spend every moment I had left trying to figure it out; then I’d do it.

I dragged myself upright, thrilled when my legs didn’t wobble. Having a plan, however vague, always helped.

Jimmy’s dark eyes followed my every movement, like a dog with a juicy steak, or perhaps a wolf that’s just seen something small and tasty skitter free of cover. For the first time I was very glad of those chains.

His eyes had an odd flare of red at the center, making me think this body was just a Jimmy-shell, a home for something else, and that scared me more than anything had in a long time. Because if that were true, then where was Jimmy? Could I reach him if he were truly gone?

The door opened, and a man and a woman, black suit and gray, tromped in.

Vampire.

I was beginning to think that Ruthie’s whisper was stuck.

“They’re
all
vampires?” I asked.

The Strega contemplated me for several seconds, as if trying to decide if it would help his cause or hurt it for me to know what I was dealing with. He decided, as I already had, that it didn’t make much difference what I knew. I’d never leave here alive.

“They are,” he agreed. “My personal army.”

“They look like lawyers,” I mused, “which I guess makes sense. Bloodsuckers.”

He dipped his head in an Old World gesture rarely seen in this one. “We fit in well here, and Manhattan has always been the best place for those of our kind. So many people, so little time.”

Sawyer had said that New York was a place where the Nephilim thronged. I suspected a vampire, or a thousand, could survive in the big city virtually undetected. Who would notice a missing street person here, a tourist there? And so what if they did? I doubted anyone would ever find the bodies.

The vamps suddenly lifted me right off my feet.

“I can walk,” I protested. They didn’t speak, didn’t even glance my way. They were a little robotic.

Vampire robots. The movie would probably be a blockbuster. People were such sheep.

I winced at my thoughts. For the vampires, people
were
sheep, or maybe cattle. Definitely food. I did not plan to be the next course on anyone’s plate.

As the vampires hustled me from the torture chamber, which appeared to have been staged for my benefit, or perhaps Jimmy’s pleasure—his moaning at the pain of the cuts was pretty damn creepy—I searched for any weakness in their defenses.

I didn’t find one, unless you counted the ease with which I’d gotten in, and since they’d been waiting for me, had obviously
let
me in, only making a token resistance at the front so I wouldn’t bolt, that didn’t count. They hud played me just right, no doubt because Jimmy had told them how.

Into the elevator we went. Boy vamp swiped a key card, girl vamp pressed
P
.

Penthouse. Swell. The first time I’d ever be in one and I really didn’t want to go.

The elevator opened, and instead of lifting me and carrying me, they just shoved—both of them at the same time, as if they could communicate telepathically, or perhaps they only had one brain between them. I flew off my feet, landing on my hands and knees in the middle of the room.

“A simple
this is your floor
would have been sufficient,” I muttered.

The only answer was the soft swoosh of the doors, followed by the muted whine of the elevator descending.

I glanced behind me. They’d both left. Scrambling up, I examined the call button. It required one of the key cards to activate. I wasn’t surprised.

Penthouse? Prison?

Potato? Pot-a-toe?

I faced the wall of windows. Since this was the tallest structure in the area, except for the Empire State Building, I didn’t have to stare into another building full of workers scurrying ratlike through a maze of cubicles.

Out there I saw only navy blue night, a few distant stars not overshadowed by the lights of Broadway, Fifth Avenue, hell, every avenue.

For a minute I missed Friedenberg so badly I ached with it. I had a very bad feeling I wasn’t ever going to see home again.

The rest of the place was pure penthouse, and when I say that I mean decorations by Larry Flynt.