Ilona Andrews - Hex Appeal

I tossed magic dust, and this time it stopped him. Planning to slit my throat was not an errand of mercy.

“I’m not a Grigori,” I said. “They’re all in the pit. Sit.” Another swish of my hand, and he sat, just catching his ass on the edge of the bed. “Tell me what you know.”

“God sent angels to watch over the humans,” he recited robotically, which was what I got when I used the enchanted dust. “But some of them lusted instead and were confined to the deepest, darkest level of hell.”

“Tartarus,” I murmured. An extremely unpleasant place. I’d been lucky.

Jimmy gave a jerky nod. “Their offspring—the Nephilim—were left behind to challenge the humans. They are what we fight.”

“And the fallen angels that didn’t succumb to temptation?”

“Too good to go into the pit, too tainted by earth to return home, they became fairies.” Jimmy blinked, and reason returned to his eyes. “That’s you?”

“Me,” I agreed.

“Besides that sparkly gunk”—he waved at my hands—“what else can you do?”

“Fly without wings. Glamour.”

See the future.

I left that last talent out. It always gave rise to more questions than I wanted to answer, and with Jimmy, there’d be questions I couldn’t answer.

“If you can practice glamour, then why do you look like that?”

I tilted my head, allowed what I knew to be perfectly proportioned pink lips to curl. “You don’t like how I look?”

With his olive coloring, it was hard to tell, but I was fairly certain he blushed. Which was one of the reasons I looked like this.

“You look great,” he blurted. “It’s just … well … You seem kind of helpless and—”

“Flighty?” He shrugged. “The more helpless I appear, the dumber I act, the harder they fall.” My smile widened. “Or maybe I should say, the quicker they turn to ashes.”

Understanding blossomed. “It’s camouflage.”

“What else is glamour but that?”

“What do you really look like?”

Something he would never, ever see.

I stood. “You can tell me where we’re going and what we’re killing in the car.”

I headed for the door. When he didn’t follow, I glanced back to find his gaze scanning the room. “You don’t have a suitcase?”

I wiggled my fingers. “Everything I need is right here.”

The late-March sun rose through smoky Minnesota skies, casting dim rays across the still-snow-strewn parking lot. I hoped we were headed south.

“I thought you could fly,” Jimmy said.

“I can, but you can’t.” I cast him a quick glance. “Can you?”

Jimmy hunched his shoulders. “No.”

He never had answered my first question: What are you? I decided to rephrase. “What can you do?”

“Enough,” he said.

I wondered if he knew all he was capable of, or if he was still finding out. Some DKs were late bloomers, their special talents latent until puberty and beyond. Those were usually the most dangerous ones, too, as if all the years spent growing into a power made that power practically explode once it was ready to come through.

“You need to be more specific,” I said. “I’m not going into battle with an unknown weapon.”

He scowled, but he answered. “I’m faster, stronger, and damn hard to kill.”

“So am I.”

He looked down. “I’m a dhampir.”

“Son of a vampire,” I murmured. He didn’t seem happy about it, but then, who would be? Vampires sucked.

Ha-ha.

“I sense them,” he continued, still not looking at me. “I’m extremely good at killing them.”

“Okay,” I said. “So we’re going after a vampire?”

His head came up. Something flickered in those incredible eyes before he glanced away again. He was hiding something, but what could it be?

“We should probably take a plane,” Jimmy said, the words an obvious attempt to change the subject. I let him. I knew what I needed to know. For now.

“I don’t do planes.” The one time I’d tried it, the controls had whirled and whirled until a few of them exploded. I’d never get in one of those tin cans again. Instead—

I lifted my chin toward the powder blue ’57 Chevy Impala. “We’ll take that.”

Jimmy’s lips curved. “Can I drive?”

“No.”

He didn’t take offense. Instead, his smile deepened as he slid into the passenger seat. He ran his hand along the dash, the movement causing something to shift in my stomach as I had an image of him running that hand along me.

To stop that line of thought—remembering Jimmy’s touch when he’d never touched me gave me a shimmering sense of déjà vu that caused my stomach to pitch and roll—I started the engine. The sweet rumble soothed me as little else could. I loved this car. It was the only thing I had to call my own.

After backing out, I headed for the street. “Which way?”

“South,” Jimmy said.

“Hallelujah.”

“And west. New Mexico.”

Hadn’t been there in decades. Or was it centuries? Time got funny once you lived through the first millennium—or ten.

“Where in New Mexico?”

“Navajo reservation.”

“Pretty big area.”

“Twenty-six thousand square miles.” At least he’d done his homework. “Ruthie said we should go to the foot of Mount Taylor.”

What were the odds that I’d need to head to the same place I’d headed to the last time? You’d think pretty damn slim, but when dealing with supernatural entities, the opposite was true. Certain creatures could be found in certain places, and Mount Taylor had always been special. Sacred to the Navajo, but sacred often arose out of spooky.

“You know where that is?” Jimmy asked, and I nodded. “How long will it take?”

“Do I look like I have Google Maps in my brain?”

“You look like you could have just about anything in there.”

He sounded impressed, and a place right between my C-cups went all gooey and warm. No one had ever been impressed by me before.

Scared of me? Horrified by me? Pleased I’d done my job? Sure. But impressed? Nope.

I kind of liked it.

“We’ll be there in twenty-three hours, give or take.”

He sat back. “Quicker if you let me drive.”

“Fat chance.”

“You gotta sleep.”

I snorted. One good thing about being a fairy—I only slept if I wanted to. Considering what I saw when I closed my eyes … I didn’t often want to.

“What are we after at Mount Taylor?” I asked.

“Sorcerer.”

I frowned. He’d graduated from vampires to sorcerers? That was kind of a big leap. This entire situation made me uneasy.

“What kind of sorcerer?”

“Does it matter?”

“The only way to kill something is to know exactly what it is that needs killing.”

“Ruthie said you’d know.”

“Great,” I muttered. I was starting to wonder if Ruthie wanted me dead. “She said this guy—?”

I glanced at Jimmy for confirmation—technically, a woman should be called a sorceress, but it was best to be sure—and he nodded.

“This guy was a sorcerer. ” I emphasized the word. “Not a witch or a warlock, a wizard or a magician?”

“No. She said ‘sorcerer.’ What’s the difference?”

“There are two kinds of magic. White is given; black is taken.”

“Given by who? Taken from what?”

The entrance ramp for I-35 loomed ahead, and I waited to answer him until I’d merged into traffic. It was early yet; the road sparkled with the remains of the salt used to prevent vehicles from winding up in a ditch during every snowstorm.

“White magic is learned,” I began. “Given by another devotee. Sometimes inherited through families. In theory, a human can practice white magic. In practice, for magic to be powerful enough to be of any use, it can’t be contained by them for very long. They burn out.”