CHAPTER 34

I never found out if a heart could continue to beat on the outside of a body, because as soon as Sawyer died the power slammed into me like a truck.

In the distance thunder rumbled; I smelled rain on the wind. My hair crackled. The lightning danced nearby, and I wanted it.

Come to me.

The words were both in my head and in the roll of the thunder. Demonic laughter swelled; the whispers commenced, and I slammed the door. I was too fascinated with the magic to listen.

The Phoenix shrieked her rage, but there was nothing she could do. The fury of the storm was mine; I would command the lightning. Right now, as the newborn power flowed through me, I thought I could command just about anything.

I faced her. She was still fighting revenants, but she was mowing them down pretty fast. Summer had run to Jimmy, of course. But I didn’t care about them now; all I cared about was her.

“Bigger phoenix,” I growled, and called down the storm.

Bolts of lightning slammed into the ground at my feet. The earth trembled beneath my wrath. Blue light shimmered; I had to close my eyes as the lightning hit me. The sizzle and burn, the flare of electricity, made my teeth hum. The back of my neck blazed, and I knew that I could fly.

Dark clouds shrouded the sun, turning the air so cold my breath became smoke. Dust swirled by on the wind, and the rain began to fall like tears.

“You bitch!” The Phoenix stalked across the yard and slapped me in the face. The more I got to know her, the happier I was about foster care. “I told you I was the only one who got to kill around here. Daughter or not, you die.”

“Good luck with that,” I said.

“You forget. I’m still the Phoenix.” She poked me hard in the chest. “And you’re not.”

Then she turned and headed for the porch. I assumed she’d read something in the key that she thought might kill me.

“Wrong,” I said, and clasped a hand to the phoenix tattoo imprinted on the back of my neck only moments before by the lightning.

Shifting as a vampire. God, it was great. The flash of light so much flashier, the bone-deep chill delicious when followed by the flare of welcome heat.

I fluffed my wings. The colors dazzled—scarlet and neon orange, daffodil against sapphire. I opened my beak and called out. The Phoenix froze as suddenly she understood.

Slowly she turned, lip curled like a rabid dog. “You loved him?”

Yeah, it was news to me too.

She shot fire in my direction, but I could fly, and I zoomed straight up, then dived back down, headed right for her. Except she’d already shifted, admirably fast, and we met a dozen feet off the ground.

Our clash was the thunder, the slash of fire new lightning. My wings sizzled, and I called on the rain to put them out. Before I circled back to hit her again, I’d grown new ones, and so had she.

The battle was epic—flames and blood across the sky. Feathers flew everywhere, like a rainbow tumbling to the earth in a thousand oval pieces.

We could do this for days—hurt and then heal, die and be reborn—but the simple fact remained that I was the bigger phoenix. I was more than just a firebird; I was a vampire and a shifter and now a sorcerer too; the depth of my power stunned even me.

So I called on the storm; I brought the lightning, and then I hit her with everything at once—fire and electricity, wind and magic.

Her outline flared white. The silhouette against the stormy sky made me think of a cartoon X-ray. ZZZAAAPP!

Then the light went out. For a single instant she hung there, no longer brightly colored, but black as coal dust.

Slowly the cinders began to drip away, falling toward the ground like silver-edged snowflakes. Before they could pile into a drift and—who knows?—maybe regenerate, restore, renew, arise, I hit them with a gale-force wind and sent her in a thousand different parts to a hundred different places.

Resurrect that, I thought.

I sailed downward, and the dust of the revenants blew past me like a sandstorm. I ignored them, all my intentions centered on the two beings left alive in the yard.

Summer had released Jimmy. They stood close, but not touching, staring up at me. As I neared, the fairy stepped in front of Jimmy, but he shoved her back.

I imagined myself as myself, and the change reversed—a bright flash, the heat gave way to a certain chill, and I touched down with five toes instead of three.

Naked, but I didn’t care. Vampires don’t care about much. Pure evil can be so liberating.

I still wanted to suck Jimmy dry—he practically glittered with power—and it occurred to me that if I killed the fairy, I could.

I crossed the short distance between us. Summer flew upward without benefit of wings, a graceful leapfrog, over Jimmy’s head, to land between him and me.

Idiot. I couldn’t touch him until she was dead, and she’d just made it so much easier.

I grabbed her by the throat, lifted her off the ground, glanced around for something to kill her with. I didn’t have to look far. An old bird feeder atop a steel bar listed crookedly at the side of the house. I dragged her in that direction by her shiny blond hair.

I should have known that something was wrong when Jimmy let me have her. He didn’t jump on my back; he didn’t yank off his cock ring and try to kill me. And I say try, because killing me just wasn’t going to happen—unless I chose to die.

Talk about liberating.

I reached the bird feeder, yanked it out with one hand, while I held Summer with the other. A quick shake and the wooden container on the top flew into the side of the house and burst into smithereens. I considered shaking Summer the same way, just for the hell of it. Could I rattle her brains? I kind of thought so.

But I wanted to open Sanducci’s neck, let the blood run free, touch it, drink of it and discover how long it would take him to die. Unless he tasted so good I decided to keep him alive forever. The possibilities were endless once this annoying Tinkerbell takeoff was gone.

I needed cold steel, but the post in my hand remained warm from the sun that had shone down before I’d called the storm. I closed my eyes, and an icy wind stirred my hair. Seconds later hail pinged against the ground. I waited until my fingers cramped from the cold, until the metal became foggy with frost; then I lifted the post and prepared to ram it down her throat.

The light began to flicker and I paused, tilting my head upward. The sun came out from behind the storm clouds, but the shapes flying in front of it made the rays go dark-light, dark-light.

I’d seen this once before. When the Grigori had flown free of Tartarus they had made patterns across the full white moon. Now, they were returning at their master’s call—at my call—making the same shadows across the brilliant flare of the sun.

Command them.

I glanced at Sawyer, still hanging on the pole, heartless. I guess he hadn’t been too damned to be innocent after all.

I dropped the fairy, and she crumpled to the ground; then I tossed the steel through the front window of the house. The resulting crash of glass made me laugh, and the laughter was that of the demon inside.

“Kill her,” I ordered, and the Grigori—chaos spirits that glimmered like misshapen bats and crows and vultures—swooped down.

That’s it, the familiar voice crooned. Command them and you are the Prince; then all you have to do is let me in. No more pain, no more fear, no more death. Anything you’ve ever wanted will be yours.

Sounded reasonable to me. I opened my mouth to agree, and the catch on my collar clicked closed. Like air running out of a punctured balloon, the evil flowed away, leaving behind only a whisper.

“Call them off.” Jimmy grabbed my elbow so hard my bones seemed to grate together. “Now, before they kill her.”

The dark, whirling cloud of evil spirits had gathered above the fairy. The way they slithered and danced, the scent of them—burned rubber garnished with rotten eggs—their voices, part screech, part insane murmur, repelled me.

“Stop,” I ordered, and they did.

Feel the power. Wouldn’t you like more? Wouldn’t you like it all?

The Grigori began to murmur again, their voices just like his, promising impossible things, guaranteeing all. I fell to the ground, covered my ears with my hands, but I could still hear, because the voice inside of me had only gotten louder.

The temptation was overwhelming. No more pain. No more fear. No more death.

Let me in. Let me in. Let me in.

The words pulsed to the beat of my heart. I thought I might go mad if they didn’t stop. So I sat up, and I shouted to the sky, “Go to hell!”

And they did.